Deeper Than the World
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: A murder and a slightly out-of-the-ordinary conversation begin a web of events that no one expected. But the end of the term is approaching, and the gang really doesn't have time to worry about far-fetched conspiracy theories. Atypical high school AU.
1. Prologue

_Author's note: this is a sequel to Deeper Than the Sea; however, you do not need to have read that to understand this._

**Deeper Than the World**

**Prologue**

A man sat in his living room, smoking a cigar and tapping his finger on the coffee table impatiently. He held the phone to his ear with his shoulder.

"So," said a timid voice on the other end of the line, "Kuro?"

"Yes, Kuro." The man's tone was low; dangerous.

"But…wasn't he your favorite agent?"

"He was careless—and was thwarted by a mere gaggle of teens."

There was a gulp from the other end of the line. "Did you have a…preference? As to the method?"

"Just have it done by morning, and know that if it even comes _close_ to being traced I will personally see to it that you never see another day."

The man hung up then. He leaned back into the couch and took a heavy drag from the cigar.

VVVVVVVVV

The village of Fuchsia, in the northern state of Maine of the United States of America, right by the Canadian border, was not a well-known or exciting location. It was half village—whose existence was supported by a single farmer's pumpkin crops—and half extensive school system, which was known as WG Institute and educated all village children from elementary school through college.

Neither Fuchsia nor WG Institute could be located on maps or guidebooks, so the only outsiders that encountered the village was the odd hiker that embarked on a certain mountain trail that went straight through the little village.

Fuchsia was a lot of things, but most would have said that exciting was certainly not one of them. This was until a day in late October when the village woke up and discovered that a great many things had happened overnight.

There was the fact that overnight, the gossip mill had a great many things to say about Luffy D Monkey, Zoro Roronoa, Nami Mikan, Usopp S King, Sanji Prince, Vivi Nefertari and Chopper T Tony. There was much juicy information available about their personal lives that had not been previously, and the gossips of Fuchsia would have leapt for joy if not for the fact that there were even bigger revelations that had been made overnight.

Like the fact that reliable, proper, polite Mr. Krahadore was actually named Kuro, and was a fugitive from the small Caribbean nation of Alabasta—wanted for murder. He had attempted to kill Kaya Syrup, whose legal guardian he had been, and take her substantial fortune. His attempts had been thwarted by the aforementioned group of seven, though no two accounts agreed on exactly _how_ this had occurred.

As if this was not enough, there was news that long-time swimming coach Arlong was resigning. However, the rumor mill dictated that he had only resigned because he had known he would be fired—for what was another case where each telling of the tale said something different.

So it was that for a week or so, all talk in Fuchsia revolved around these exciting events.

However, by the first week of November, Kuro was to be shipped to Alabasta and nothing else particularly exciting had occurred; the rumors slowed to a trickle, and people resumed their ordinary lives.

Then, on the morning of the day when Kuro was to be sent off, Mr. Gen—local police chief—went to his jail cell to escort him to the car and found him dead.

He had been killed by a single, precise blow to the back of the head. Yet the attacker and weapon were nowhere to be found in a room that was perfectly sealed with the only existing keys belonging to Mr. Gen.

Once again, the gossip mill went wild.


	2. Iceburg Cutty

_Author's Note: I'm so flattered to see that so many people are following this from Deeper Than the Sea! For the record, I'm trying to start this out at a pace faster than DTtS, because there's so much more stuff that I want to happen in this story. As a few of you asked in reviews—yes, there will be Skypeia characters in this story! In fact, I have a whole sub-plot I want to write for the Skypeian characters...though it's rather intense, so I'm not sure I'll be able to fit it into the trilogy. But if I don't get it in this arc or the next, I promise I'll publish it separately, as its own little side story! (I just really want to write an AU with the Skypeia characters... XP)_

_Anyway, thanks for all the reviews and all the support! I hope that you'll all continue to enjoy this story as it unfolds!  
_

**Deeper Than the World**

**1: Iceburg Cutty**

"What do you mean, it _collapsed?_" demanded Nami. "It's our meeting house, it can't just _collapse!_"

"The hell?" Usopp snapped back. "You were the least enthusiastic about this whole shack idea when Luffy first thought of it! I thought you were the one who would understand if I told you that it. Is. A. Piece. Of. Junk! Not fixable! I'm just lucky that I wasn't _in_ it when it fell in on itself…"

"I bet you destroyed the little remaining foundation that was holding it up," muttered Sanji under his breath.

Usopp spun on Sanji with a death glare. "Like I would _do_ something like that!" he snapped. "I may be an amateur, but I know what a foundation is!"

"Ah, but can you identify one when you see it?" asked Nami. "Especially in a pile of rubble that's moments away from collapsing anyway?"

Usopp threw his hands into the air. "Look, I'm just taking this to Luffy."

He moved to stalk off down the path, but Zoro grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Usopp choked and hastily backed up.

"Are you trying to kill me?"

"If you take it to Luffy, he'll look at us with that disappointed look of his, and next thing you know we'll be living in a cave somewhere miles and miles from here."

"Or just a fraction of a mile, but far enough that Zoro would never get there," supplied Nami.

Usopp threw his hammer to the ground and threw up his hands in despair. "Fine, then! What do you want from me? Luffy's going to notice that the building's broken eventually, a big collapsed shack isn't exactly concealable!"

"You could put up a big board with a painting of a shack on it while you work behind the board," said Sanji. "Luffy'd never know the difference."

"Yeah, right!" huff Usopp. "_No _one would notice the missing dimension, I'm sure. Why don't I remove the second dimension and just make a line while I'm at it? I'm sure no one would notice!"

"Well, no need to be _sarcastic,_" said Sanji in a distinctly sarcastic tone.

"I agree with Sanji that Luffy probably wouldn't miss the third dimension," supplied Nami.

Usopp stared at them, and then heaved a sigh. "Fine, I'll go buy a big board. But if he pitches a fit, it's on you two."

Still, when Usopp reached the store and looked at the largest board they had, he was filled with doubt that even the most realistic painting would be mistaken for anything but a painting.

"Hey, what can I do you for?" said a cheerful, familiar voice. When the large man stepped out from the pile of wood, Usopp blinked in surprise.

"Mr. Cutty?"

The man glared. "I keep telling you kids to call me Bro, I don't understand why that's so difficult! Mr. Cutty is so formal, it makes me feel _old_."

Usopp was very, very tempted to tell the man that as far as he was concerned, late 30s very much counted as 'old.' However, he also retained survival instincts which were screaming that to say such a thing would be a very bad idea.

"Um, in that case, I think I'll just…"

"Franky, _how_ many times must I tell you not to intimidate the customers?" demanded another familiar voice, and Usopp blinked in terror as Mr. Iceburg Cutty stepped out from the back room.

"Mr…Mr. Cutty!" he squeaked. Where in the _world_ was Ms. Kokoro, and _why_ was her shop overrun with scary teachers?

"See, now that's just inefficient," Mr. Cutty who was Franky commented. "Now you're calling _both_ of us Mr. Cutty, and we'd never know which of us was supposed to be which."

"You- you're related?" Usopp squeaked, and wondered why it should have never occurred to him that if there were two people of similar age with the same last name in a village this small, chances were that they were, in fact, related.

"Unfortunately," the pair chorused, rolling their eyes identically.

"Not by blood, though, thank god," said Mr. (Franky) Cutty.

"That's my line," said Mr. (Iceburg) Cutty, and the pair launched into an attempt to name as many faults of the other as they could think of.

Usopp stared in awe as the usually calm, cold, efficient Mr. (Iceburg) Cutty shouted and complained and argued with his brother like a boy.

"Anyhow," said Mr. (Iceburg) Cutty, cutting off one of Mr. (Franky) Cutty's longer rants. "What was it you came to buy?"

"Um, I was thinking about getting one of these planks of wood…but I'm thinking about reconsidering."

"What're you planning on using it for?" demanded Franky in a voice that was a great deal louder than necessary (as Iceburg was quick to point out).

"Do tell," said Iceburg, turning back to Usopp after a brief argument with Franky about appropriate voice volumes. "We're both professionals, we should be able to help."

"Well, you see, there's this…thing…of questionable structural integrity. Well, it _was_ of questionable structural integrity, now it really has no structural integrity, since it's not really standing anymore. But anyway, that shack was supposed to be…like a club spot, in a way, and there're a lot of people counting on it being there, so we had to do something quickly-"

"I really don't think that a 10' x 10' x ½" plank of wood is going to do you any good," Franky interrupted.

"He shouldn't have interrupted," said Iceburg with a glare, "but he's right. If it's entirely collapsed, then you'll want to start from scratch on that same foundation—assuming that there are still parts of the foundation that are usable, because otherwise you'll just be building a new structure _entirely_ from scratch. So you'll want precise measurements, and especially if you're in a rush, it would be better if we provided you with-"

"No, no, no," Usopp interjected. "You're misunderstanding me. You see, I am an amateur, and I know that there is no way that I'll be able to build a building, even on top of an existing foundation, in the next week or even month. So I need a way to appease a certain…determined person who wants the building finished."

"…So you need a really large plank of wood," Iceburg deadpanned. "_What_, exactly, were you going to do to appease this person?"

"Er…paint a shack on the plank of wood and stand it up in front of the shack I'm building?" said Usopp timidly.

The Cutty brothers stared at him as if he had just spouted two heads and a few extra arms.

"It wasn't _my_ idea!" he declared, throwing his hands up in the air. "_I_ said that the missing dimension would be pretty conspicuous, but do they ever listen to me? No… I'm just the guy who builds things and fixes things because I'm a bit better at it than they are!"

Iceburg blinked. Franky put his hands on his hips, puffed his chest out importantly, and said, "Then don't you worry!_ I'll_ rebuild this shack for you, and I'll do it so quick and super that you won't even need the painting!"

Iceburg yawned. "Well, if you need help, you know where to find me," he said as he made his way back to the back room.

"I won't need _your_ help!" said Franky. "I'll _never_ need your help! Who ever said I'd need help from _you?_"

No reply came from the back room, and Franky turned back to Usopp. "Right, now take me to this shack!"

"Um," said Usopp timidly, "I don't think I'm allowed to bring people to the shack—it's kind of like a gang thing, you know?"

"You're not even allowed to have gangs in the Institute," said Franky. "You're not super smart, are you?"

"Shut up, I'm your best architecture student!" snapped Usopp.

"You've got no aptitude," sniffed Franky. "You treat architecture like sculpture!"

"What's wrong with _that_?" demanded Usopp, resisting the temptation to stomp. "So I'm more creative!"

"Nothing," replied Franky, "except that structural integrity is a lot more important in architecture than in sculpture!"

"_Why_ do you keep throwing that word at me?" Usopp cried, finally giving in and stomping his foot in frustration. "It's not _my_ fault that _Luffy_ decided we were supposed to congregate in a deteriorating shack!"

"_I_," said Franky in that self-important manner of a master of a trade, "would have been able to fix it up super before it collapsed."

"I guess that's why I'm not an architect and you are, then!" snapped Usopp.

"I guess that means I'm fixing the shack!" said Franky.

"I guess so!" said Usopp, and spun around in a huff as he started down the road.

"I'll be back!" called Franky at the shop.

"No kidding," came Iceburg's voice back from the shop. "Unless you intended to cut down trees and fashion the lumber yourself."

"Shut up, or I'll do it and I'll do it super!" snapped Franky, spinning around to yell at the shop.

"'I'll do it _superbly_,' would be the correct way to phrase that sentence," Iceburg called back.

"Are you coming or _not?_" demanded Usopp, causing Franky to snap his mouth shut and hurry after Usopp, but not without sending an, "Idiotburg!" over his shoulder at the shop.

It was probably for the better that Iceburg muttered his retort under his breath.

* * *

"Well, this is bad," commented Franky within ten seconds of entering the clearing.

"Yes, but _how_ bad?" asked Usopp hesitantly.

"Well, another few weeks of work at least, I'd say," replied Franky.

"…Still sure we don't need that painting?"

Franky waved a hand dismissively. "No one would be fooled by a painting for long anyway. Why not just try to keep that guy away from this place while I'm working on it?"

"I could try," said Usopp doubtfully. "But I doubt it would work."

"I could arrange my tutoring times strategically for the next week or so," said a voice from behind them, making them jump. They spun around to see Nami, her swim bag slung over her shoulder. "I can't help you during my swim practice, though." She grinned widely and turned. "Have fun, boys!" she said, waving idly as she slipped into the trees.

Usopp and Franky stared after her in silence for a moment.

"That was…brief," commented Usopp.

"I didn't know Nami Mikan ever looked happy," remarked Franky.

"So, the shack?"

"Yeah, super! Leave it to me!"

"I can help, you know."

"Amateurs just get in the way. Leave it to me and it'll be super!"

Usopp briefly considered arguing, then thought of all the free time he would have.

"Okay then, see you!" He turned to walk away.

"Oh no you don't," said Franky, catching him by the back of the collar. "You're going to run to the shop and get me the materials I need."

Usopp groaned.

"Do you want your place to get fixed, or not?"

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

"No," said Kuina coldly.

"But why _not_?" huffed Luffy. "Look, I'll just take it, use it, and bring it back! Isn't that what you're supposed to do with library books?"

"Yes, when you're checking them out to read them," said Kuina.

"And?" said Luffy.

"You're not checking out that encyclopedia to read it."

"Yeah! How'd you know?"

"It's a physiology encyclopedia."

"…What's fisylology?"

"Exactly."

"But I _wanted_ it!"

"For _what,_ exactly? Or dare I even ask?"

"Well, you see, Chopper and I were playing this game where he sticks twigs in his hair like antlers and I pretend I'm Santa and steer him by the antlers, but he's always just a little too short, and there's nothing the right size for him to stand on."

"So you're borrowing this as a stool?"

"No, I want Chopper to stand on it so he'll be the right height."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"I'll give you some meat, I know I've got some here…" He began digging through his pockets.

"No!" exclaimed Kuina, but Luffy had already pulled something white and blue and orange from his pocket. "I don't think I like that kind of meat… And besides, I- I'm suddenly vegetarian."

"Really?" said Luffy, stuffing the lump of mould into his mouth. "Why?"

Kuina fought nausea frantically.

"Never mind…I'm not letting you have that book. You'll have to find another stool."

Luffy's shoulder's slumped a bit for a moment, but as he placed the large leather-bound book on the desk, he suddenly perked up again.

"I know! I can get a log! Usopp can cut down a tree for me!" With that, he rushed out of the library.

Kuina sighed and rubbed her forehead, wondering why she always felt so tired after having a conversation with Luffy.

A blur of blue in the corner of her eye made Kuina turn her head. She caught a brief glimpse of a girl with hair that was a bluish grey—is_ that grey?_ Kuina wondered, _She looks far too young to have grey hair_—and tied into a ponytail.

_Oops,_ thought Kuina wryly as the girl scampered out the door—without setting off the alarm system. _Chased off another patron._

* * *

Vivi _had_ heard the conversation between Luffy and and the librarian. She had not, however, been scared out of the library by Luffy's idiocy. (She had, in fact, been chuckling to herself as she listened to the conversation, marveling at the librarian's patience.)

What had sent her scampering out the door was the sight of a familiar face in the garden.

"Kohza?" she called, running after the familiar form. He turned around, and sure enough, it was her best friend since childhood. "Kohza!" she repeated joyously as she ran up to him.

"Vivi," he responded with a wide grin.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in delight.

"I heard about the situation from my father," he said.

"Uncle Toto," Vivi sighed. "I thought he might tell you…"

"I thought you might be needing some help…" shrugged Kohza. "But by the time I got my visa and arrived, I guess you'd already sorted everything out."

"Oh, thank god—so the illegal exports and imports stopped after Kuro was captured?"

"Yep—seems that that escaped convict had one heck of a market going under the radar."

"It's just…" Vivi sighed. "There were strange things in his records, you know. Like how he was interviewed here while he was supposedly still in prison in Alabasta."

Kohza raised his eyebrows in amusement. "So you thought he had an accomplice here? Vivi, you worry too much. Besides, that evidence would suggest an accomplice in Alabasta's jail—not here in Fuchsia."

"I suppose," sighed Vivi. She smiled wryly. "Sorry, you know me—I have trouble believing anything when I'm only looking at pieces of information, and can't see the whole picture…"

"You just like to worry," teased Kohza. Vivi laughed.

* * *

"So think you can handle it?"

"Of course!"

"You're a great swimmer—easily the best. I don't understand why Coach Arlong never put you in any of the competitions."

Nami shrugged. "He and I had…a number of _issues_."

Lola laughed. "Say no more. The man's horribly sexist, if nothing else. But as long as I'm coach, the only merit anyone gets is from skill and possibly effort."

"Unless one of the guys agrees to one of your proposals one day." Nami smirked.

Lola laughed heartily. "Unlikely. They've all rejected me so far."

But a glimpse of a red ball of energy running from the library had caught Nami's attention. "I'd love to continue to chat, Lola, but I'm afraid I have someone to catch and force into tutoring."

Nami was already running and waving by the time she had finished her sentence.

"Have fun!" called Lola, turning to head back into the gym.

Nami sprinted towards the intersection where the path Luffy was on merged with the main street, and managed to catch Luffy by the back of his shirt in the nick of time.

"What?" exclaimed Luffy, halting and turning in surprise. "Nami! Hey, I was trying to find something for Chopper to stand on so he'd be the right height to do—something, I don't remember what, but that's not important because I'll figure it out later—and Kuina wouldn't let me take any of those big books from the library, so I need to go ask Usopp if he has a big block of wood or something! So I have to hurry!"

Nami crossed her arms threateningly. "Homework?"

Luffy's eyes became notably shifty. "Um…I don't know what you're talking about?"

"Strike one. Try again."

"I'm sorry, Nami, but I promise I'll do it later! Right now I really have to get this done!"

"You're _playing_."

"No, it's an _essperimement_."

"Is this…_experiment_ in any way relevant to anything you're learning in class?"

"Um…can I ask Usopp? Or Chopper?"

"No. Come with me, we're finding Zoro and doing your homework."

"Why?" whined Luffy. "He can just copy later! It'll take _ages_ if we try to find Zoro!"

"Zoro won't learn anything if he copies your homework, and then he'll still be in high school when he's thirty!"

"I think he'd quit after a few more years," said Luffy.

"Which would be _bad_," Nami stated.

Luffy sighed. "_Fine_… Can we at least search separately?"

Nami's eyes narrowed. "And let you escape? Absolutely not."

Luffy sighed forlornly. "Fine…"

* * *

"Wow," said Sanji mildly. "You still confident that you can get this done before Luffy notices?"

Usopp rolled his eyes testily. "Can you not _see_ that I've been demoted to errand boy?" he said.

Sanji raised his eyebrows. "And here I expected an embellished, extensive tale of how the situation was fixable until you were attacked by some sewer monster."

"Sewer monster? There isn't even running water here!"

"Oh, don't worry!" Franky called, poking his head out from behind a pole that he was steadying. "I'll attach the building to the city reserves, so there'll be running water, electricity, cable and internet when I'm done."

"Isn't that a little excessive?" asked Sanji.

"But this is our _lair_," said Franky, staring at Sanji as if he had grown another few noses.

"First of all, I believe that Luffy defined it as a 'hide-out' or something like that, and for another, what the hell do you mean, 'our'?"

"Well, I expect to have special access privileges, seeing as how I'm building you a well-equipped building for free."

"You just want a room of your own, don't you?" said Usopp, taking a wild guess that, given the size of the Cutty family, Franky was forced to share a room with one of his siblings.

Franky opened his mouth defiantly as if to deny this claim, but then seemed to think better of arguing, and his shoulders slumped over. "Yeah," he said. "And Ma won't let us wire up the house so we can get internet."

"In this day and age, you don't have _internet_ at home?" said Usopp incredulously, stopping his work to stare at Franky.

"Whatever, and who gave you super permission to stop working? Do you want this thing done as soon as possible or not?"

"Yes…" sighed Usopp gloomily, resuming handing Franky nails, screws, planks, boards and blocks as requested.

"Well, I've got work…" Sanji lied, instinctively sensing that another few moments in the clearing and he would be drafted to assist as well.

"Traitor! Stay and help!" called Usopp, but Sanji was already well on his way out of the clearing and into the trees.

A few moments later—once the sounds of voices and working behind him had faded—he suddenly realized that it was his first time walking this trail alone; the trail appeared to fork, but he didn't remember having ever seen this fork before. Forced to guess, Sanji opted to turn right, figuring that that path looked better trodden. If he guessed wrong, he had only to turn back and go the other way.

The hum of voices made Sanji sigh in relief—surely the road wasn't far away!

Then he recognized one of the voices. Miss Robin Nico—he wouldn't mistake that soothing, sensual voice anywhere! He rushed forward to get a glimpse of the raven-haired beauty—and stopped as he realized that the conversation was not taking place at the road, but in the middle of the forest. Sensing that this was not a situation into which he should barge in blindly, Sanji tip-toed forward as close as he dared without being detected by the rustle of the underbrush.

"…isn't very happy with you." Miss Nico's voice was as luscious as ever—though perhaps colder and icier than Sanji remembered. But the iciness only made her voice all the more beautiful!

"Then can't he have the decency to say so himself?" The voice was that of a man, but it was barely louder than a whisper—Sanji thought that the voice sounded vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough that he could not dismiss it as a trick of the mind.

"Don't be ridiculous. The boss has more important things to do."

"So he tells me to do his dirty work for him?"

"You did it without complaint," Miss Nico replied.

"I assumed there would be compensation."

"You get to maintain your position here. He could have had you transferred."

"He said to be _subtle_."

"An obvious intruder with no trace of an entry is _hardly_ subtle." Sanji hadn't known that Miss Nico could be _sarcastic,_ and he had to bite his lip to keep from swooning.

"How was I supposed to know they wouldn't consider suicide?"

Sanji's eyes widened as he realized that there was only one possible incident in the little town of Fuchsia that could possibly be the event under discussion.

The sound of a light impact.

"And these discussions must not contain such obvious words either."

"Then make up a code."

"You're a professional. We would have expected that you would not need such fundamental guidance. Now go."

"Ladies first."

"If you insist."

Sanji froze as he realized that it would be virtually impossible for Miss Nico not to see him. He tried his best to edge around a tree at the side of the trail, hoping like nothing else that she would not look back.

He heard the crunching of leaves coming closer, and tried to _become_ the tree against his back. The crunching footsteps approached the tree, and then came around the tree; Sanji saw Miss Nico's back, and just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief—she looked back.

Miss Nico looked at Sanji without a trace of surprise in her eyes. Then she smiled a smile that sent shivers running down Sanji's spine—and he wasn't sure that they were entirely the _good_ kind of shivers—and turned back on her way.


	3. Conis Pagaya

**Deeper Than the World**

**2: Conis Pagaya**

"Do you think it's important?"

"No!" shouted Usopp at the same moment as Franky bellowed, "Yes!"

Sanji blinked.

"Oh, I'm sorry—were you under the impression that I was paying attention to whatever you were arguing about?"

The pair glowered at him. "So what _were_ you referring to, then?" snapped Usopp.

"Did either of you hear a word I said?" Sanji's voice was laced with impatience.

"Yeah, you were going on about Robin's beauty," said Franky, rolling his eyes.

"Not _that_ part," huffed Sanji, and then paused. "But she _is_ beautiful as the moon on a faintly misty night, complete with that air of mystery that makes her all the more beautiful because you can't discern exactly _what's_ going on through her mind-"

"Were you intending to get to the point anytime soon, or do we have to tune you out again?"

"He does this a lot, doesn't he?" Franky's comment was addressed to Usopp.

"Totally," Usopp sighed. "You have no idea how much."

"_Listen_ to me!" snapped Sanji.

"Then get to the _point!_" Usopp and Franky chorused.

"I was saying how I distinctly heard Miss Nico talking to someone as if he were the one who killed Kuro—and under her orders!"

There was along silence.

"You were dreaming," Usopp concluded after a minute.

"What he said," concurred Franky.

Sanji threw up his hands. "Screw this, I'm going to talk to someone else."

After he stomped off, Franky and Usopp worked in silence for a few minutes before Usopp finally ventured the question that was running through his mind. "Do you think he really heard that?"

Franky looked at Usopp with hard eyes. "Of course not. Robin ordering someone to kill Kuro—impossible. Imagine what that would mean about Fuchsia! We'd practically have to be operating under a widespread conspiracy for something like that to work out: where would the assassins come from? Where would they stay?"

"I get it, I get it," groaned Usopp, rolling his eyes. It was true—in a village like Fuchsia where very little ever happened, the moment one unknown person stepped into the village, or anyone did something odd or uncharacteristic, the entire village always knew every detail within the next half hour. Assassins and conspiracies couldn't possibly work in Fuschia.

VVVVVVVVVVV

"…and it's terrible, Miss Vivi, because I've told Usopp and Franky, and Miss Nami and the two idiots she tutors, but absolutely no one believes me!"

"Well, you have to admit that it's a bit far-fetched for a village like Fuchsia," Kohza pointed out.

"I wasn't talking to you," snapped Sanji, who had taken on a confrontational position against this young man who appeared to occupy an irreplaceable special place in Miss Vivi's life.

"But it's true," Vivi pointed out. "It would mean that Miss Nico's been operating under the entire village's radar for a really long time—and where would the assassin have come from?"

"Kuro was operating under the entire village's radar, and no one would believe the one person who found the first sign that he wasn't what he said he was."

Vivi and Kohza pondered that for a few moments.

"That's true," said Vivi. "And we were saying that all evidence suggested that Kuro had an accomplice."

"But Miss Nico, Kuro's accomplice?" Kohza snorted. "There are so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to begin. For example, what benefit is there for Miss Nico to be helping a convict escape here from Alabasta? For another thing, if she was his accomplice, why would she order someone to kill him?"

"Maybe they were lovers," suggested Vivi. "After Kuro took Kaya's fortune, maybe they were going to live together…or just split the assets or something," she added quickly, noticing the rising fury in Sanji's face.

"Miss Nico? With Kuro? How dare he! A woman as beautiful as Miss Robin, and he dares call her his lover? He dares lay a _finger_ on her? That's just-"

"-Wrong," said Luffy.

The group stared at him.

"Where did you come from?" gasped Vivi.

"And what the hell are you doing participating in this discussion?" demanded Sanji. "You didn't even believe me when I told you!"

"Did too!" said Luffy indignantly. "But every time I tried to say something Nami hit me in the head with the incyclopade!"

"Encyclopedia," Vivi corrected absently.

"Ah, yes, she did, didn't she? She was so lovely with each blow she dealt to your head…"

"Focus, please, Sanji," said Vivi.

"What's _he_ doing here?" said Luffy, suddenly noticing Kohza. "He's not in our gang."

"Oh, this is my best friend Kohza from Alabasta," said Vivi, appalled at her lapse of manners. "Kohza, this is Sanji, a cook, and this is Luffy, who's a year ahead of me in school."

"Nice to meet you," said Kohza politely.

Sanji looked Kohza up and down, scrutinizing. Then he smiled and held out a hand. "Nice to meet you. Sorry about my attitude earlier. I was under the impression that you were romantically involved."

Kohza blinked. "So…you like Vivi?"

"Of course! She is lovely and beautiful and exquisite and graceful-"

"Except he says that about all members of the female sex," said Nami, appearing around a corner and towing Zoro behind her by the ear. "Don't take Sanji to heart. Nice to meet you, I'm Nami." She released Zoro's ear to shake Kohza's hand.

"Nice to meet you too," said Kohza with a friendly smile.

"Oh, and this is Zoro. Zoro, remember your manners."

"Damn monster woman…" muttered Zoro under his breath, rubbing his ear.

"Eight hundred seventy-four and ninety cents," said Nami with a glare. Zoro's mouth snapped shut and he gave Kohza a curt nod.

"What happened? Isn't that a huge jump?" said Vivi, concerned.

"We had a fight," said Zoro simply.

"Yes, Luffy actually had to mediate, didn't you, Luffy?" said Nami. Luffy didn't respond. "Didn't you, Luffy?"

"I don't like him," said Luffy, still looking straight at Kohza. The group froze and stared at him. Luffy turned to Vivi. "Sorry, Vivi, I know he's your best friend and all, but he's not joining the gang. Let's go to the hideaway." And he turned and began to walk away.

"Oh," said Vivi weakly, confused.

"My god," said Nami faintly.

"That was friggin' _weird_," Sanji summed up, bafflement written all over his expression. "When the hell has that guy ever not liked someone on first sight?"

"With Usopp," said Nami.

"And Kuro," said Vivi. "Mr. Ace told me that Luffy never liked him, even before we knew what he'd done."

"Yes, but with Usopp it wasn't that he didn't _like_ the guy—it's just that he didn't appreciate a braggart and liar asking to join his precious gang," Sanji pointed out. "And let's call Kuro a case of good judgement of character. Neither situation applies to Kohza."

"Sorry, Kohza," said Vivi apologetically. "We'll talk to him."

"Don't worry about it," Kohza waved a hand with a smile. "I've got my hands full with work anyway. Besides, you know where to find me, and I don't need to be in the gang to be your best friend. See you later, Vivi." He stood from where he had been sitting on the ground and brushing off his pants, headed in the opposite direction as Luffy had.

As soon as he rounded a corner, to everyone's surprise, Vivi leapt to her feet and dashed after Luffy, who was already out of sight.

"And that was odd too," said Sanji.

"Quick, we need to stop them," said Zoro, already heading after Vivi quickly.

"Stop who? Why?" said Nami. "Oh, right, the hideout! I'd almost forgotten-"

"We'll be lucky if they get as far as the hideout and they don't have a full out brawl in the middle of the street," said Zoro.

Sanji caught on. "Oh crap. Luffy'd better not go hitting a lady!"

And finally Nami realized why Vivi had dashed after Luffy. "Oh no, we have to hurry!" She broke into a run.

Of course, they ran through the school grounds and out into the street before they found the pair, but by then it was already too late. The insults were flying, and there was a small crowd gathering.

"-no consideration for anyone but yourself! And you didn't even take a few seconds to get to _know_ him!"

"You can't make me change my mind, because I don't trust him!"

"You haven't even _tried_!"

"You don't _try_ to find someone trustworthy!"

"You don't go insulting your friends' best friends either!"

"That wasn't an insult, I was being honest!"

"In an incredibly rude, shortsighted manner! He came all this way just to make sure that the Kuro issue worked out-"

"But he came _after_ it was all over! We're the ones who actually sorted it out!"

"Is Luffy jealous?" Nami wondered out loud. Zoro and Sanji snorted in unison.

"Not likely," said Zoro.

"Impossible. He doesn't know what jealousy _is_," said Sanji.

"We have to stop the fight," said Nami. "You two get Luffy." With that, she ran around to restrain Vivi, who was pulling back a fist to punch Luffy.

"Sure, let's just throw punches around why don't we!" shouted Luffy, his tone dripping with sarcasm as Zoro pulled him back away from Vivi.

"Stop it, Luffy! What the _hell_ are you trying to do?" shouted Sanji, slapping Luffy across the face. "Snap out of, you moron!"

Luffy went quiet and blinked.

"I don't want anything to do with you until you apologize, Luffy," said Vivi. The anger was gone from her voice, leaving behind only weariness. "Until then, I'll be spending my free time with a friend who doesn't see the need to insult my other friends."

She pulled away from Nami and walked back into the Institute. Nami looked after her, sorely tempted to follow, but knowing that it would do little good unless Luffy was the one to find her and apologize.

"I don't understand you, Luffy," said Nami weakly as Zoro released him. "You're so good at making friends, you bring us all so close that we feel like a family, and then you start tearing us apart because you don't have a good impression of Vivi's best friend? You don't have to like him to be polite."

"It's more than just not liking him," said Luffy, his voice uncharacteristically hard.

"_What!_" demanded Nami shrilly. "Tell me, then, exactly _what_ was it?"

Luffy averted his eyes and didn't reply.

"I'm not talking to you till you apologize," said Nami stiffly. "I will tutor you because it's my duty, but I refuse to be your friend until you fix this mess."

She turned her heel and marched away. Sanji looked between Luffy and Nami for a moment, considering saying something but deciding against it, before running after Nami.

Luffy collapsed to his knees, and glared up at Zoro. "What, aren't you going to walk away too?"

Zoro said nothing, but sat beside him. The crowd had mostly dissipated "Why wouldn't you say anything?"

Luffy smiled bitterly—a look that did not suit him at all—but said nothing.

A girl with long blond hair knelt beside Luffy, holding out a handkerchief.

"I'm sorry—you must feel terrible," she said.

Luffy numbly accepted the handkerchief.

"I think…" she hesitated. "You see, I'm Miss Nami's roommate, so I see a lot of you, though you may not remember me… But I think I know who Miss Vivi's friend is…and I think I know why you don't trust him."

Luffy's head snapped up to look at her.

"You go to the cliff too?"

"No, not a cliff…but there's a small cave on a ledge that I like—maybe it's near your cliff."

"Oh," said Luffy, and sighed and leaned back.

"You saw…" the girl looked around, checking that no one was around anymore before whispering, "You saw him and Miss Nico exchanging something too?"

"Guns," said Luffy with another sigh. "It was guns."

"Oh. I couldn't see that much."

"I suppose you didn't actually see their faces that well, which is why you didn't say anything," said Zoro, standing. "Well, then—the only thing to do is to prove things one way or another, right Luffy?"

He held out a hand to Luffy. After a moment, Luffy took his hand and stood, his usual smile suddenly back in place. "Right!"

"We should go find Usopp and…that guy who's working on the hideaway with him," said Zoro. "Just don't tell them about the Vivi incident."

"Wait, someone's working on the hideaway with Usopp? Why?"

"Because Usopp broke it and we needed it fixed before-" There was an abrupt pause during which the girl looked at Zoro curiously and Zoro remained frozen. Then, "Oops," Zoro said sheepishly. But Luffy didn't seem to be paying attention.

"Right, let's go!"

"If you need me, I'll be in my room," she called after them.

"Wait," said Luffy, jerking to a halt, "You're not helping us?"

"I will," said the girl, "but first there's a small matter I need to take care of…"

"Ah, right," said Zoro, as if suddenly coming to a realization. "We'll find you later, then."

"Wait, Zoro, why are you just letting her go?" demanded Luffy and Zoro towed him off down the street. "Also, you're going the wrong way."

Zoro let out a grunt of frustration and spun around. "Fine, you lead!"

"First explain why we're not demanding that that girl help." Luffy crossed his arms and stood in place.

"I think she's the gardener's daughter…and Vivi's friend was dressed like a gardener. If Vivi's friend has guns, that girl will probably want to warn her father to be careful…"

"Ah," said Luffy, comprehension dawning. "Okay, we'll find her later." He began to lead the way toward the hideout before suddenly spinning around to glare at Zoro. "And why did no one tell me that Usopp broke the hideout?"

"Never mind that," said Zoro evasively—and fortunately Luffy had enough on his mind at that particular moment that he let the matter go.

VVVVVVVVV

Usopp gave a squeak of alarm when Luffy emerged from the trees.

"Hey, Zoro, this isn't as bad as you said it was!" Luffy called back into the trees just as Zoro emerged after him.

Usopp scuttled to Zoro's side. "You _told_ him? How could you tell him after all the trouble we went through?"

"There are bigger problems," said Zoro.

"Right," said Luffy. "Sanji heard Miss Nico talking to the assassin that killed Kuro, and Miss Nico also was giving Vivi's friend guns. I think."

Usopp threw his hands into the air. "Sanji's tale gets wilder every time I hear it. You don't actually _believe_ that, do you?"

"It's not all Sanji's story, though. I saw her giving the guns to Vivi's friend. And Miss Nico isn't miss Nico, and there were people gossiping about it once, but I haven't heard anything about it ever since—and usually this kind of news spreads really fast."

"Hang on, your stories are so convoluted that I'm never sure I understand them at all. So you saw Miss Nico giving Vivi's friend guns."

"Yes."

"And Miss Nico isn't Miss Nico?"

"Yeah, she's Mrs. Alligator."

Usopp blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Mrs. Crocodile. He means Mrs. Crocodile. Though technically being the wife of a knighted man would make her Lady Crocodile."

"Wait…she's married to Sir Crocodile? How? When? Why?" Usopp thought his head might explode.

"Hey, don't look at me—the kid in red's the one who brought the info. I was just translating."

Luffy stared up at Franky as if just noticing him.

"Who're you?" he asked.

"Franky Cutty, at your service, yo," said the man on top of the hideaway-in-progress.

"His name's actually Flam, but he hates being called that," Usopp whispered conspiratorially.

"Hey, I heard that! I'm docking you a letter grade for that!"

"No fair!"

"What are you, a toddler?"

"You can't abuse your power as a teacher!"

"Oh yes I can. It's not ethical, but they'll take my word over yours anyway."

Usopp growled.

"Wanna join our gang?" Luffy asked Franky as if he couldn't hear a word of the argument.

"Sure thing!" said Franky, and shot a smug grin in Usopp's direction. Usopp threw up his hands in resignation.

"Whatever, so are we waiting for everyone else before we make a plan?" asked Usopp.

"Yeah, about that…Vivi got mad at me for not liking her friend, and Nami got mad at me for fighting with Vivi, and Sanji left with Nami."

Usopp blinked. "You didn't tell them about the guns?"

Luffy stared. "You think I would accuse my friend's best friend of something without being sure of it? That's offensive!"

"Look at that, he's got something of a conscience," remarked Usopp. "So, is anyone going to find Chopper, or are we counting him as a lost cause since he has a bunch of classes with Nami?"

The looks on Zoro and Luffy's faces revealed that they hadn't thought of this.

"But we already came all the way here—can't we make a plan first?" Luffy almost whined petulantly.

"That part's easy—we need proof, and if Miss Nico lives with Sir Crocodile, there's no way we'll be able to search her house or anything. That guy's sharp as a razor. So we need to follow Miss Nico around. It'd be easier if we have more people, because then we can have more shifts."

"Shifts?" demanded Franky. "You're going to stalk a teacher in shifts?"

"Yeah, and you'll get the most time since you're a teacher too—more access to her, you see."

"Wait, he's a teacher?" demanded Luffy.

"He's building us a house, and he's not the local carpenter. Of course he's a teacher."

"That logic is flawed!" said Luffy.

"Ooh, big words," said Usopp in a sing-song voice.

"I know, Nami taught me," said Luffy, puffed up with pride.

"Now shall we get to work? Who's going to go get Chopper?"

"I'll go," said Zoro.

"No!" cried Usopp in alarm. "Never mind, stupid question—I'll go. Franky, Luffy, watch Zoro and make sure he doesn't wander off."

"So…you teach carpentry?" asked Zoro conversationally after Usopp was gone and the silence had continued a while.

"Like W.G. Institute offers carpentry. It tries to push all its students into politics—politics is what the whole place is _about_. Nah, they just have an architecture elective that I teach. The rest of the time I spend working in Kokoro's shop—she's my ma, you see."

"I didn't know our school was so oriented around politics," said Zoro in surprise.

"No, you wouldn't unless you looked at the statistics—where all the money goes, what teachers get hired, which teachers get the best salaries and what not."

"Why would you have ever wanted to know that?" demanded Luffy.

Franky stared down at him from his perch on the frame that would presumably be the roof eventually. "Why the hell would I ever have wanted to know that?"

"That's what I asked!" Luffy pointed out indignantly.

"And I asked what the hell would make you think that that was even a pertinent question!"

"Pertinent?"

"Relevant."

"Wow, Zoro, you know two big words?"

"Shut up, you're the last person who can tease anyone about not knowing big words. He means that he never wanted to know."

"But," said Luffy, turning back to Franky on the roof, "you said that that was the only way anyone would know that."

"Most people, yeah," said Franky with a roll of the eyes. "Unfortunately, my brother works in administration. This sort of thing is dinner table conversation, when he gets any say in the topic."

"Don't be ridiculous, no one talks about anything but food at the dinner table!" huffed Luffy.

"Only in your life," muttered Zoro—but not quietly enough.

"What? Why?"

"Because anyone eating at the same table as you has to eat quickly while guarding their food and occasionally shoot you insults when you take food from their plates."

"You make it sound like you're a casual observer," noted Franky.

"I am," said Zoro. "I eat fast and stab Luffy's hands with a fork whenever he gets too close."

Franky winced. Luffy looked at Zoro quizzically.

"But I get food from your plate anyway," he pointed out.

Zoro rolled his eyes. "Only when I'm already full, or when I feel like taking pity on you."

Luffy seemed to ponder this for a while before dismissing it.

"So your brother's a big brother?" Luffy asked Franky.

Franky blinked. "Ah…yeah, that brother I was talking about is older than me."

"That's great! I have a big brother too—his name's Ace, and he's in college and he's really cool!"

"No kidding—Ace Portgas?"

"Yeah! You know him?"

"Know him? He works with me when he has time—he's an engineering major because we don't have an architecture major, but he took my class and took an interest in what I do. One of my best students."

"Wow, you must be that funny teacher he told me about then!"

Franky blinked. "Funny?" But Luffy's mind was already elsewhere.

"Wait, you said _that_ brother. Do you have other brothers?"

"Just the one. He's two. Named Gonbe."

Luffy blinked. "And how old are you?"

"Shut up, we're all adopted! There's a wide range of ages in my family, okay?"

"No need to yell," muttered Luffy, perhaps slightly offended.

"Chopper is secured!" cried Usopp, bursting out of the bushes.

"That was fast," remarked Franky.

"I ran, just in case one of the others caught him first."

"You make this sound like a race."

"It _might _have been!" Usopp leapt to his own defense.

"Um…what's going on?" Chopper piped up hesitantly.

"Luffy showed questionable good sense and started a fight with Vivi instead of telling her that he saw her friend getting guns from Miss Nico." Usopp rolled his eyes as he spoke.

Chopper's eyes widened in alarm. "Really? But that's terrible! We have to tell Vivi and-"

"Bad idea," said Usopp, shaking his head. "If Luffy saw another person and only thought it was Vivi's friend, then throwing around accusations will only make things worse. So our mission is to find proof that Miss Nico is connected with the Kuro incident, and that Vivi's friend is connected to Miss Nico."

Chopper thought about this for a moment. "How are we going to prove that?"

"Okay, here's my plan," said Usopp, sitting in the grass and pulling out a notebook and pen from a pocket. He began sketching rough lines, forming seven columns, each segmented into twelve sections. "We make a weeklong schedule, and one of us will be keeping an eye on her at all times. Alright, first of all, who has class with her when?"

With Luffy speaking for himself and Zoro who was napping against a tree, Luffy, Chopper and Usopp plotted out a rough sketch of their respective history periods. "And we can keep in contact by cell phone, so if Miss Nico doesn't show up for class, the one who was watching her previously can tell us where she is, and we can keep an eye on her that way until class is over. Though that seems unlikely—she never misses class."

"What do we do at night?" asked Chopper. "Do we sneak into her house?"

"Heaven forbid!" said Usopp, sounding shocked. "Even more so if she's married to Sir Crocodile! We watch from outside her house."

"But what about the passages?" asked Luffy.

Usopp paused. Then he looked at Luffy suspiciously. "Please don't tell me that they connect to houses other than Kaya's…"

Luffy blinked, seemingly baffled by the question. "Why not? They do. Almost every house."

"Oh…God, this won't work," groaned Usopp.

"Wait, secret passages? What secret passages?" Franky demanded from the roof.

"There's a network of passages under the Institute, and Fuchsia too, apparently. Connected to almost every house." Usopp sounded faint.

"Wait," said Franky, waving his hands wildly, "that can't possibly be right. At Kokoro's shop, we've got the blueprints for practically every building, and there's not a single underground passage to be found!"

"Maybe someone else creates the passages after the houses are built?" suggested Chopper with a shrug.

"But it's not that easy, you see!" Franky practically leapt down from the roof and ran over to Chopper to shake him by the shoulders. "Don't you see? You need to truly understand the foundations of a building—you have to be _building_ that building in order to create a hidden door and connect it to the passages. In fact, if there are already existing passages, you have to know where they are, because building on top of them could result in a weak foundation!"

"So you're saying that the fact that there's no evidence of this means that we have a magician on our hands?" Usopp drawled sarcastically.

"No! Don't you see? We don't even hire workers to build—we do it ourselves. That means someone in this town has a better-than-average working knowledge of architecture and is implementing it somehow, to connect buildings to these passageways!"

"Great. Another local mystery. Can we worry about this later? We have a murderer and a friend of a friend with guns to deal with."

"Oh, there're weird things in the buildings too," said Luffy, piping up. "Once Zoro and I were walking around inside the school, and then suddenly we were on a roof. Another time I fell out of a closet and landed outside!"

"Luffy, can you not encourage him?" groaned Usopp, but it was too late.

"Someone must have worked with the architects to design those tricks in the buildings—it couldn't have been a job done in secret. But then why would the blueprints be devoid of any traces of that, then? I just don't get it!"

"Calm down, Franky…those buildings were built, what, 50 years ago? Who cares! We can worry about the mystery of your blueprints later. I think the murderer is more important at the moment."

"So…what are we doing at night, then?" asked Chopper.

There was a silence as everyone looked at Usopp. Usopp made some noncommittal sounds and mumbled some incoherent comments before declaring loudly, "Anyway, Franky! Tell us when you have classes!"

Rolling his eyes, Franky named the times at which he had classes. There were not many—barely one or two a day—but it just so happened that the 1 to 2:30pm time slot was full for him everyday. As it happened, all of the others had other classes during that timeframe, and no one could be on NW (the name for their operation, named by Luffy as an abbreviation of Nico Watch).

"That's the sophomore history slot, though," Franky pointed out. "We just need to assign that slot to a sophomore! Isn't any of you a sophomore?"

"Nope," chirped Luffy. "I'm a junior, he's a junior, he's a junior-senior, and he's a freshman."

"Shit," said Usopp. "We can't leave her uncovered at anytime, she could be doing anything! Can't we ask Vivi?"

"Isn't she angry at Luffy?" asked Chopper.

"But if we don't tell her that we're working with Luffy…or that we suspect her friend…"

"How are we supposed to have her watch the woman if we can't even tell her what she's watching _for?_" Franky demanded, and Usopp once again was reduced to incoherent mumbles.

"What about Nami's roommate?" suggested Luffy. All eyes turned to him in surprise. "She knew about that guy already, and she did say we should come ask if we needed any help…"

"Perfect!" exclaimed Usopp. "Then we'll include her in the schedule. So Franky can take over all the times during school when we don't have class with Miss Nico, and then Chopper and I can alternate days between the end of school and the end of your and Zoro's tutoring—what time does that usually end, again? Six?"

"Or five…or seven…"

"Great, then we'll alternate you and Zoro in the shift after your tutoring…say from seven to eleven. And then since there're six of us including Conis, we can pair-"

"Wait, who's Conis?" Luffy interrupted.

Usopp stared. "Wait, didn't you say that she'd offered to help?"

"No, that was Nami's roommate. You know, the nice girl with the whitish-gold hair in weird balls at the top of her head."

"Yeah, her name's Conis."

"Oh, really?"

"…Yeah."

"Never mind, then."

Usopp shook his head in exasperation, but continued. "As I was saying…we can pair up for night shifts—that way we can have one person outside and one in the passages. Tonight Luffy and I can take the shift-"

"Hey, I want to go too!" said Chopper indignantly.

"But we need Luffy on the team because he's the only one who knows the passages, and we need someone else to learn them from Luffy—and that second person will take tomorrow night's shift and teach them to the next person, and so on and so forth."

"Never mind, I don't want to not sleep for two nights," said Chopper with a shudder.

Usopp shuddered in response as well. "Me neither."

"Count me out, I have a hideout to finish here."

"I'll go!" volunteered Zoro with a smirk.

"No, please don't," Usopp and Chopper chorused.

"Luffy'd have to be on tomorrow night's shift too, and you know how he gets when he doesn't sleep enough…"

"And you'd probably wind up in Canada again," Chopper added.

"That happened twice! Twice!" But Zoro's insistence met deaf ears.

"I suppose that we can assign Conis to tonight, then," Usopp decided.

"Wait, you're not even asking her?" Chopper exclaimed.

"We can just point out that it's for her father's sake—she won't argue."

"You're heartless!"

"This is a battle, Chopper—it's merely strategy."

"Riiiiiiight…." drawled Franky disbelievingly.

"What, you're suggesting that it's _not_ strategy?"

"No, I'm suggesting that you're just pushing the duty onto the girl because she conveniently isn't here to protest."

"Would you like tonight's watch duty, then?"

"Nope."

"Then shut up. Let's go!"


	4. Blueno Horn

**Deeper Than the World**

**3: Blueno Horn**

"Of course I will," said Conis when they informed her of their plans. Usopp blinked.

"That's amazing, you knew she'd agree!" said Chopper in amazement, his eyes sparkling.

"It- it is, isn't it?" laughed Usopp awkwardly. "I knew things would go this way!"

"He didn't, did he?" said Franky to Zoro. Zoro snored. "And this one's asleep," Franky sighed to himself in exasperation.

"Great! Then Luffy and Conis, you two can meet at – wait a second, where's Luffy?"

"Guys!" came a call from the distance. They turned to look, and saw a ball of red bolting towards them across the courtyard. "It's terrible—Sanji and Nami and Vivi are at the hideout!"

"How is that terrible?" sighed Usopp as Luffy reached them and screeched to a halt. "Maybe if we talk to them-"

"But wasn't the whole purpose of this operation to do things quietly so that if Luffy was wrong, Vivi isn't even angrier?" piped up Chopper.

"Well, it's not like we can just stand out in front of the dorms every time we need to talk," Franky pointed out. As if to make his point, just at that moment a girl came out of the girls' dorm, and shot them bewildered looks as they watched her walk away, waiting for her to get out of hearing range.

"There's an abundance of forest and mountain around us," pointed out Conis. "We can talk anywhere."

"Except for the problem sleeping right over there," said Usopp, gesturing over at Zoro.

"Oh, yes, Nami did say that he gets lost a lot," Conis remarked.

"Understatement of the year," sighed Chopper.

"All we need is a meeting place, right?" said Franky slowly.

Usopp, Chopper and Conis exchanged a look. "Yeah, pretty much."

"But it has to be cool!" Luffy piped up.

"No, it doesn't, because this one is only temporary," Usopp snapped. Luffy pouted, but did not argue.

"In that case, what about the space behind the pub?" suggested Franky. The group blinked at him.

"You mean where they throw all the idiots who pass out?" smirked Zoro. The group (minus Luffy, who was distracted by…the grass?) jumped, not having realized that he'd woken up.

"Yes, but how would you- _What _the _hell!_" Franky's reply was cut off in an exclamation of alarm as the group once again jumped when Luffy _pounced_. It was a magnificent pounce—Conis thought absently, after the shock had worn off, that it probably could have won him a medal of some sort at the Olympics—and had carried him right past the chatting group and practically into a pile of bushes.

"What the _hell_, Luffy!" shouted Usopp, echoing Franky.

"What they said," said Chopper, sounding faint.

"Got him!" declared Luffy in triumph. He turned, brandishing a furry rodent. "Look, I caught a rat!"

The group stared in alarm at the squirming, growling creature that was most _definitely_ a lot larger than a rat.

"Luffy…that's not a rat," said Chopper. His voice was trembling.

"Are you sure?" asked Luffy sincerely. "It has a big tail and big ears."

"Is…did he catch a _fox?_" asked Usopp faintly. "Did Luffy seriously just catch a _fox?_"

"It's smaller than a fox," Franky pointed out, watching in amusement as Luffy scrambled with the creature, trying to find a way to keep it from escaping while at the same time preventing it from biting him.

"I think it's a marten," said Conis, sounding stunned. "And I- I can't be certain, of course, but it looks like a Newfoundland pine marten."

"Is it rare, or something?" asked Usopp.

"It's an endangered species, and it's not even supposed to exist out of Newfoundland and Labrador!"

"That's Canada, right?" asked Luffy, who had figured out that the creature couldn't hurt him if he pinned it beneath his own body, holding its head steady with his hands. "Canada's not that far."

"But Newfoundland and Labrador's a province further north—and _please _let it go, it's an endangered species! And you're going to crush it!"

Luffy looked up at Conis, cast fallen. "Aw…but I wanted to eat it!"

"_No!_" declared all members of the group present, minus Zoro who had fallen asleep again.

Luffy sighed. "Fine. At least can I keep it in the hideout?"

"We don't _have_ a hideout right now," Usopp pointed out.

"So? I'm calling it Claws."

"Why not Fangs?" suggested Usopp as the marten tried to crane its neck to bite Luffy.

"'Cause Claws sounds cooler," said Luffy.

"Nami forced him to read Harry Potter. He didn't like it." Zoro, apparently, had woken up again.

"Stop trying to _name_ it! Can you just _stop_ crushing the poor thing?" exclaimed Conis, and began to tug Luffy up off the marten.

Luffy blinked—Conis had been so calm and compliant that he had not expected her to take that action. "Right, sorry," he apologized, allowing her to tug him up. He did not, however, release the marten. He and the marten went back to wrestling.

"Wait a moment," said Conis, reaching forward to touch the marten's back, and failing due to the sheer energy with which the creature was trying to twist its way to freedom. However, she did manage to get a good look at the gash on its back before it twisted. "He's hurt! Mr. Chopper, do you suppose you could…"

Chopper was already at her side, peering at the marten's back. "Luffy, hold its head and forelegs steady. Conis, could you get the hind legs?"

"I'm sorry—we have to do this," Conis crooned to the animal as she reached forward and held its hind legs steady with surprisingly steady hands.

"What are forelegs?" asked Luffy.

"The front legs," Conis supplied, her earlier vehemence gone without a trace.

"Oh, okay."

With the marten held steady, the gash that ran diagonally across its back was clear to see.

"It scabbed over, but all this fighting with Luffy made it open up again," Chopper observed as he pushed aside the fur to get a good look at the cut. "But that probably would have happened anyway. This needs to be disinfected and stitched."

"It already is infected," Conis pointed out. "See, that deep part there?"

"Yeah," said Chopper, noticing. "Follow me, we'll take it to the biology lab—I have some supplies there, I can treat it there."

"Mr. Luffy," said Conis tentatively, "I don't suppose you'd mind letting me carry her?"

Luffy looked, torn, from the hissing marten to Conis. "I guess so," he said resignedly.

"Shh, I'm sorry, we'll make you better soon," Conis crooned gently to the marten as she carefully took it into her arms so that she wouldn't touch or put any pressure on its back.

Surprisingly, the marten ceased its struggling and hissing and lay still in Conis's arms. Conis, who had anticipated having to cruelly restrain the animal, blinked at the welcome surprise.

"That's amazing," Usopp remarked, staring.

"I thought things like that only happened in movies," Franky concurred.

Conis smiled. "I need to be careful that it doesn't take this as an opportunity to escape," she pointed out, but her smile belied her words.

"I bet she wants to be a vet," Usopp whispered to the other three as Conis hurried ahead with Chopper.

"She certainly loves that animal."

"And she knew what it was at a glance," Franky observed.

"I wanted it," sulked Luffy.

"Give it up—it likes her better," yawned Zoro.

"You know, I bet you'd be a lot less tired all the time if you'd sleep _less_," Franky mused. Zoro shot him a deadly glare, and Franky shrugged as if to say, _Whatever, it's your life._

* * *

It was a few hours later that they sat out back of the school with the marten, still sedated, curled up on Conis's lap. They had considered remaining in the lab, but Conis had pointed out that it was against the rules to have animals in any school building, and it would be better if they moved out before they got thrown out.

"Are you naming it?" Usopp asked as Conis smiled down at the marten.

Conis smiled at him. "It's a bad idea to name wild animals."

Usopp did not press the matter.

"Anyway, why can't we stay here? This can be our new hideout," Chopper pointed out.

"Nami eats her lunch here everyday that she's not with me and Zoro," Luffy said.

"Oh." Chopper thought a moment. "But if we just don't come here during lunch…"

"No, we need a place that we can go to anytime, without worrying about Nami or Vivi or Sanji," said Usopp.

"Why? We won't meet during lunch hour. All our lunch hours don't even match up!"

"It's a matter of principle," said Usopp solemnly.

"Oh, okay," said Chopper, nodding in comprehension.

"So what about it? That space behind the pub?" Franky suggested again.

"Sounds good," said Usopp.

"Yep!" said Luffy.

"Double yep!" chirped Chopper.

"I need to find a place to keep her safe until she's better," Conis commented. "I don't think that the space behind a pub would suffice for that."

The group was silent. "Franky?" suggested Chopper.

"Nope. Kid siblings, not even a room to myself," he reminded them.

"Oh."

"Why not your place? You live with that bad doctor, right?" asked Luffy.

"Animals in my place become…lab rats," Chopper confessed with a fearful glance Conis's way.

She shot him an alarmed look and put her hand protectively on the marten's head. The marten purred. They all turned to stare at it.

"They can purr?" asked Franky.

"Sounded more like a growl," observed Zoro.

"No, cats sound something like that when they purr," said Usopp.

"Maybe I can risk sneaking her into my room," Conis mused.

The five males turned to stare.

"You do realize that no animals are allowed in the dorms, right?"

"I know," said Conis, "but I can't bear the thought of leaving her alone. Or perhaps I could leave her with my father…"

"Why don't you do that?" asked Luffy. "You'll have an excuse to visit a lot more often too—you're worried about him, right?"

Conis looked at him, and smiled. "Of course, Mr. Luffy. That is a wonderful idea."

"Now that we're sufficiently delayed, can we please get to stalking Miss Nico?" said Usopp. "We'll drop off the fox-thing-"

"Marten," chorused Conis, Chopper, and—surprising everyone—Luffy.

"Right, the marten," said Usopp after staring at Luffy for a moment and receiving only a blank look in return. "And we'll go find Miss Nico and start following her."

"Oh, you're on duty tonight as well?" asked Conis, surprised.

"Yeah—I'll watch outside. You two will be in the passages."

"Ah." Conis pondered this for a moment. "How does Mr. Luffy know about these passages when no one else does?"

"Apparently he explored them a lot when he was little or something," Usopp shrugged. "Anyway, it's getting late—can we drop off the f- marten before we lose all hope of finding Miss Nico?"

"Alright; it won't take long, my father just lives in the corner of the grounds." Conis had eyes only for the marten as she lifted it—or her, if Conis's judgment of its gender was accurate—into her arms and began on her way slowly, trying to hold her as steadily as possible.

It turned out that Conis's father's house was practically inside the wildlife reserve.

"I know people always ask this, but I need to reiterate—_why_ do we have a wildlife reserve inside the school walls?"

"To keep hunters out?" suggested Conis over her shoulder as she opened the door. "Please excuse me a few minutes." And she closed the door behind her.

"To keep students in their dorms at night?" suggested Franky.

"To keep people out who just want to poke around?" suggested Luffy.

"Luffy, that's ridiculous—there's hardly anyone in Fuchsia, who'd they want to keep out?" Usopp huffed. Luffy averted his eyes and didn't reply. Usopp rolled his eyes.

"I understand having a wildlife reserve inside the walls," Chopper said. "Protection from hunters and all. I just don't understand why they include bears."

"No kidding," sighed Franky. "Did you hear about that kid who got attacked by a bear few years back?"

"Right, Wiper Shandora, right? They say he tackled that bear empty-handed! Not that I couldn't have done the same," Usopp added as an afterthought.

The group ignored his boast. "Not empty-handed," said Franky. "I think he had a spear or something simple—but someone else came along and scared the bear away to save him."

"Wiper Shandora?" squeaked Chopper, who had fallen deaf to everything else. "But isn't he the scariest guy in school?"

"There're a lot of scary guys," pointed out Usopp.

"Yeah, but _no one_ defies the Shandoras!"

"There's more than one?" asked Luffy curiously.

"Yes," said Conis, closing the door quietly behind her as she returned without the marten. "Mr. Wiper and Miss Laki Shandora are twins; Miss Aisa Shandora is their maternal cousin, but lives with them since she lost her parents at a young age."

"Ah," said Luffy.

"Now, can we go find Miss Nico?" asked Usopp impatiently.

* * *

The lights were on in Miss Nico's apartment, and the sound of pans clattering could be heard when they pressed their ears to the door. So they scattered quietly, Franky, Chopper and Zoro heading home while Usopp took his position across the street, pretending to be engrossed in a book, and Luffy led Conis back down the street.

"We can get into the passages from behind the pub," he told her.

Conis blinked, trying to remember if it had been Luffy who had suggested the back of the pub as their hideout. She didn't think it had…but that thought made her feel a little unsettled. She resolved not to think about it.

They slipped into the alleyway between the pub and the fish store, and came out into a space behind the pub that was filled with crates. "C'mon," said Luffy, clambering over the pile and dropping down on the other side. Conis climbed carefully after him, checking to see that each crate was securely on the crate below it before she trusted it with her weight. When she reached the other side, she gulped to realize that there was a sheer drop.

But Luffy was already pushing open a section of the wall of the neighboring building to reveal a dark passageway. Conis gulped and sat on the edge of the pile—and pushed off.

She landed in a crouch, and felt her heels burn—if only she owned sneakers, she thought—but quickly pulled herself up to her feet, and hurried after Luffy.

The door closed behind them, enveloping them in complete darkness. She swallowed the instinctive terror that rose in her chest. "Mr. Luffy?" she whispered tentatively. "Perhaps we can…hold hands or something, so that we don't get separated?"

"Oh, right," said Luffy, and she reached out along the wall in the direction from which the voice had come. Her hand touched skin, round and warm, and she traced his arm downwards to find his hand. "Okay, let's go," Luffy said, and Conis felt her way along the left wall, memorizing the number of intersecting passageways that they passed.

Eventually they turned left, and Conis reminded herself that it was the fifth intersection on the left. This time, she recognized that Luffy was walking along the right wall, so she switched the hand that was holding Luffy's in order to feel her way along the right wall. This time, it was at the third intersection that they turned.

Conis raised a small noise of alarm when she took a step after Luffy and stubbed her toe—hard.

"Oops, sorry." Luffy truly _did_ sound sorry, so Conis took it upon herself not to hold this against him. "There're stairs here."

"Yes, I figured that out, Mr. Luffy," Conis could not resist.

"Oh good," said Luffy, and Conis was relieved that he had not picked up on the hint of sarcasm that her words had carried despite herself.

Again she followed him up the stairs, hand against the right wall. There were no more intersections, and the staircase spiraled steeply upward.

At the top of the staircase, they turned right, and for the first time, Luffy remembered to act the part of the guide. He even remembered to whisper. "Secret entrances to individual apartments are here and there along the left wall. Just memorize the number of steps it takes you to get there, because if you try to feel your way along the left wall, you'll end up opening doors. People don't like it when you enter their apartments through the walls, even if it's by accident."

Conis gave a small chuckle to hide her trepidation. "You know this from experience?" she asked.

"No, me and my big brother got warned about it once."

Conis was about to open her mouth to ask who, exactly had warned them about wandering the passageways, but Luffy suddenly halted as she was about to take her twelfth step.

"Here, this one," said Luffy in a whisper, and it was then that Conis realized with a jolt that she could hear the faint clatter of cutlery.

If there were these passageways connecting to each of the apartments, then who knew how much of the village and the Institute was riddled with these things? She shuddered at the thought that anyone might be able to enter a locked room, or listen to a private conversation in what she would have previously considered private space.

Conis shook her head just a little, steeling her heart. Now was not the time to worry about that—there were bigger matters to worry about. She turned to Luffy and whispered, as quietly as she could, "If she knows about the passageways and comes out this way, shouldn't we be out of the way so she can't see us?"

"Oh, right," said Luffy, and they went half a dozen more paces into the hall and turned to wait.

From here, she could hear another family talking. Conis tried to tune out the words, struck with guilt for being in a position from which she could eavesdrop on a completely private conversation. But then she realized with a jolt that she recognized the voice. She turned her head in surprise.

"Come on, Aisa, don't be stubborn."

"No, you _promised_ you'd read to me!"

"It's supposed to be Laki's turn tonight."

"But I want you to read more of the pirate story! I like it more!"

"So ask Laki to read you the pirate story."

"But you do it _better_."

"Oh, fine. Where were we, again?"

"The pirate captain is trying to get back onto the ship, and the evil dictator is blowing up the country, and the people realized that they can't escape!"

"Right, right. Um, let's see… '"There's no way that we can get to that ship from here," cried the navigator over the thunder of the cannons. "We have to run!"

"'"No," said the pirate captain. "We have to ring that bell. We have to let all those people know that this island really existed."

"'The navigator stopped arguing, knowing that her protests would leave her captain unmoved. Instead she looked to the wind and their surroundings, wondering if there wasn't something that they could use to reach the ship and the legendary bell upon it…'"

Conis knew the story that Wiper Shandora was reading to his little cousin. It was the tale of a pirate crew who happen upon a legend of an island that only one person had ever found. They find a way to reach the island, by securing the one current that would carry their ship _through_ the rocks instead of into them, but upon reaching the island discover that not only is it ruled by an evil dictator, but that two races of people on the island—no more successful at leaving than other people had been at arriving on the island—were battling over possession of the land.

Her father had read it to her when she was younger. It had been her favorite book for years—it still was her most prized possession. She had loved it when her father had read it, but she understood why little Aisa preferred Wiper to read it to her—he had a way with the words. His voice was no less low and intimidating than it was at school, but he clearly loved the story—his passion made the story come to life.

Conis settled back and listened to him reading, forgetting to feel guilty for eavesdropping—even forgetting why she was in the dark passageway at all—as his voice carried her away into the world that she loved.

* * *

"Nothing, huh?" sighed Usopp the following afternoon, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"No," Conis replied as Luffy had curled up into a ball and gone to sleep on one of the crates.

"Tonight Franky and Chopper will be on watch, then. Franky, you go with Conis and learn the passageways. Chopper, you watch from outside like I did."

"Who made _you_ boss?" drawled Zoro.

Usopp huffed. "Well, I don't see anyone _else_ taking charge," he pointed out.

"I'd take watch duty," Zoro pointed out.

Usopp gave him a deadpan look. "You don't go on watch duty unless you're with someone else. We all know that you can't so much as follow a person without getting lost. It's mystifying."

"Um, but he could probably watch the front of the house," Chopper pointed out. "In fact, he'd probably be the best candidate to do that, because he sleeps all day. We could have him watch the front of the house every night."

Usopp looked at Chopper in delight. "That's an _excellent_ idea!" he exclaimed. "Zoro, like he said—you're on night duty in front of the house. If Miss Nico leaves, call the person in the passageway. Don't go by yourself."

"Great," said Zoro with a smirk that promised death to any trespasser.

"Um…don't kill anyone, okay?" Usopp warned tentatively.

"I know that," Zoro huffed indignantly.

"Just checking," said Usopp weakly, not entirely convinced.

The door opened, and the bartender stepped out with a bag of garbage. He stopped to stare at them.

"Hi, guys," he said.

"Hi, Blueno," everyone chorused.

"Might I ask what you're doing behind my bar?"

"I thought it was a pub," pointed out Usopp.

Blueno shrugged with a grin. "Different names, same thing. Are you trying to avoid the question?"

"No, um…" Usopp hesitated. "We just needed a place to talk in private, you see."

Blueno laughed. "Playing detective again, are you?" he winked. "I have to say, the whole thing with Kuro was unnerving. But don't do anything too dangerous."

"We're just brainstorming," shrugged Franky. "Say, you wouldn't have heard anything out of the ordinary, would you? Anything at all?"

Blueno furrowed his brows. "Well…now that you mention it… This probably doesn't have anything to do with anything, but the Shandora twins weren't home the night Kuro was killed."

"Seriously?" exclaimed Franky, Usopp and Chopper. Conis stared, feeling something like anguish as she remembered Wiper Shandora reading to his cousin. That couldn't be right—yet she had never had a pleasant conversation with any of the Shandoras. She could say nothing about their characters just from a night of listening to a story.

"Yeah," Blueno was continuing solemnly. "You know they never leave little Aisa alone—but just that one night, they had Mrs. Bear come over and babysit."

"But…what would assassinating an international criminal get them?" pondered Usopp.

"More importantly, _how_ did they do it?"

"Who knows? You know they head that gang with all the violent kids. Braham, Genbo, Kamakiri… Well, Kamakiri's not a bad kid if you catch him alone. But the rest…" Blueno sighed and shook his head. "But who knows? It might be a coincidence."

"A coincidence _that_ perfect?" said Usopp after Blueno had returned to the pub. Usopp's eyes were shining. "Not likely. Guys, if we can get proof-"

"It's circumstantial. It could have been anything." Conis found herself speaking before she had thought about it. She was tempted to look down and away, but figured that she may as well finish what she'd begun. "We don't know anything about them, they keep to themselves so much. We have one objective here, and we can't get distracted because of one small _possibility_ that was thrown our way! I bet if we walked around asking every shopkeeper in town, we'd get just as many theories!"

"Woah, Conis…" said Usopp, holding up his hands. "No need to take it so hard. I just thought…well, never mind that. We don't have to investigate this."

Somehow, that only made Conis feel worse—it was like abandoning existing evidence for no reason at all.

"I agree with Conis," came a voice from behind them. They all turned in surprise, and saw that Luffy was no longer dead to the world. "That Wiper guy lives next to Miss Nico. We heard him reading. He was _really good_."

Conis blinked in surprise. She hadn't even remembered that Luffy had been beside her when she was listening to the story. It hadn't occurred to her that perhaps he had been as swept away by the story as she had been.

"You're telling me that you two believe that Wiper Shandora is innocent because he's _good at reading stories?_" Usopp exclaimed in disbelief. "I can't believe this. It's ridiculous. Kuro was a really good guardian, except for the part where he intended to kill Kaya and steal all her inheritance!"

Conis looked down. "Alright," she said. "You can investigate this. But please wait until we've solved this matter of Miss Nico and Miss Vivi's friend. And I will not participate in that investigation. Mr. Cutty, I will see you here when our shift begins tonight."

With that, Conis turned her back on the group and set out toward the orphanage. She had tried to talk to Wiper and Laki Shandora when she and her father had first come to town, and that had been a disaster. She decided that she would be better off starting with Aisa. She hoped that the girl was still too young to have picked up on her cousins' hatred of the Pagayas.

* * *

The orphanage was always a pleasant place to be—maple trees covered the grounds except for one area cleared for activities such as soccer and other activities that were more easily played without obstacles. This afternoon, however, no one was in the clearing.

Conis walked through the trees, looking around for Aisa Shandora.

"You're the Pagaya girl," said a voice from nearby, and she swung about, her braids tugging painfully on her scalp when she whipped around. There was no one to be seen. "Up here," said the voice with a giggle.

Conis looked up, and there sat Aisa Shandora in a tree branch above her, looking down.

"Ground keepers have always been Shandoras at W.G. Institute," said Aisa. Conis winced. She had heard this from Wiper and Laki as well.

"I know that," she said, but she knew that her protests would hit deaf ears, just as they had with this girl's cousins. "My father does too. That's why he took the title of gardener. As soon as one of you wants the job, he's prepared to step down and give the job to you."

Aisa looked at her steadily. Strangely, her eyes held no accusation, Conis realized.

"My cousins don't believe that," said Aisa. "They say that jobs are hard to find, and there's no legal obli- legalibly-"

The girl trailed off, looking confused.

"Legal obligation?" Conis suggested tentatively.

"Yes, that!" said Aisa. "There's no…that thing you said…for you to step down, and your family will end up taking the job away."

"I won't," Conis promised. "My father wouldn't keep it when he knows how much your cousins want it, either."

"Then why are you studying animals and plants?" asked Aisa.

"Because I like them," Conis replied.

Aisa looked at Conis for a moment. Then her face broke into a grin, and Conis could see that she was missing a front tooth. "You're Luffy's friend, so I believe you."

"You and Mr. Luffy are friends?" asked Conis as Aisa slithered down the tree trunk, half wondering why she wasn't more surprised.

"Yep! Luffy and Ace are my bestest friends!" Aisa grinned. She thought about it a moment. "You can be my bestest friend too, but you have to be my friend first. And then you become my best friend, then my bester friend, then my bestest friend."

"That would be nice," smiled Conis, finding that she liked this girl immensely.

Aisa took her hand. "Come with me, I'll show you my secret tree house!"

Conis smiled and followed, feeling that she had finally made her first friend since arriving at W.G. Institute five years ago.


	5. Gan Fall

_Author's note: Hi everyone! Is anyone still reading? It's been ages since I updated… I actually had to spend a few hours re-reading from the last installment of the story and writing myself an outline so that next time I take some time away from the story it isn't so hard to try to remember everything that needs to happen. It's more confusing than I'd anticipated, trying to keep track of which things I've already referenced and which people I've never even mentioned. I have a huge file full of characters and world details, but it doesn't count for anything if I can't remember who you readers already met and what you know at this point._

_As of the end of this chapter, we're about half way through Deeper Than the World._

_Updates may continue to be slow, but I've said this before and I'll say it again: while I may conduct massive rewrites, I never abandon a fanfic, because I know how it feels to love a fanfic that goes halfway through and never gets finished. Or to have the author finally update…only to turn out that they've just written an outline of what would have happened if they'd kept writing. I'm not sure which makes me sadder, but in any case I don't like that to happen to me. So as long as there's a single person still out there interested in this story (and the hits and favorites suggest that there still are), I won't abandon it._

_Unless, you know, I lose the ability to type, but as of right now there's no worry of that._

_So, with that said: I present…a new chapter! Ta-da! Oh, and I know that the authority structure in the Institute may be a bit non-typical of Maine, but bear with me. This is set in the modern day in our world, but as you'll eventually learn, it's a slightly _different_ version of the modern day._

_Enjoy, and do review once in a while! Review are the magical power that makes me decide to update._

**Deeper Than the World**

**4: Gan Fall**

Operation NW continued without success that week. Not only was it unsuccessful—the situation was deteriorating, and rapidly so. Vivi refused to so much as look at Luffy, and Nami had stopped trying to make Luffy apologize and had begun instead dealing blows to his head any time they happened to cross paths. Miss Nico seemed to be leading a decidedly ordinary life with the exception of the care she took when she made her way into the Crocodile residence at night. They took to searching for Kohza at regular intervals, but while was generally difficult to find, when they did find him he was always dutifully working on the grounds of the Institute. If Miss Nico was involved in anything untoward, they had seen nothing to indicate that; Usopp was beginning to hint that maybe it was time to give up.

The first time Usopp made his statement overt, two weeks since the beginning of operation NW, he found himself faced with one of Luffy's glares.

"_Give up?_" Luffy hissed. "You can't be serious. Vivi could be in danger! And Miss Nico _is_ in danger!"

"Oh, come on!" cried Usopp, throwing his hands up into the air. "You can't be serious! Usually you're the _last_ one to- Wait a second." He waved his hands wildly in the air for a moment. "I think I misheard you. Did you just say that _Miss Nico_ is in danger?"

"Yep."

"Luffy," said Chopper carefully. "She's the one that we said was a _bad_ guy."

"If she were a bad guy, she wouldn't keep on getting hurt," Luffy insisted.

There was a moment of silence.

"Miss Nico keeps getting hurt?" asked Chopper.

"How do you know this?" asked Usopp.

"What kind of hurt?" asked Conis, momentarily looking up from stroking the marten which had become a fixation on her shoulders.

"What kind of jump in logic is that supposed to be?" asked Zoro.

"She's always stiff, like she can't move an arm or a leg the way it's supposed to move," Franky contributed.

"How do you _notice_ something like that?" demanded Usopp.

Franky shrugged. "I thought it was weird ever since Sanji was talking about seeing…what he saw. Nico isn't a bad person. She goes out of her way to help people, if anything. It just doesn't make _sense_."

"What he said," said Luffy, nodding emphatically.

"And besides," Franky continued, "I've been watching her and Crocodile since what Luffy said—and I think it might not be the happy, mutually desirable sort of marriage that most women want. I think—I don't know for sure, obviously—but if Nico keeps getting hurt, I think Crocodile may be the one causing that."

"So now we're investigating Crocodile for spousal abuse?" snapped Usopp. "We've been 'investigating' for two weeks with nothing to show for it but an observation of stiffness that we didn't even need to be hiding around to see! And stiffness could be anything—maybe she twists into pretzels in bed, and that's what makes her stiff!"

"Ahh, Usopp!" Chopper cried in alarm. "I don't need that mental picture! Make it go away!"

"Crocodile treats her more like an employee than a wife," Franky said. "And not one he's particularly fond of."

"They're hiding their marriage," Conis pointed out. "There is a chance that this could all be part of a cover that they have planned all along."

"Everyone calm down a second," said Zoro, holding up a hand. All eyes turned to him, and for a moment there was quiet; Zoro went on, not one to waste this opportunity. "Originally, we said we'd find evidence of Kohza and Nico's involvement. Then we started talking about finding out whether or not the Shandoras killed Kuro—and don't look at me like that, Usopp, I know you've been making a point of spying on them. Now we're talking about Nico's personal life, when in fact we have _nothing _on any of the things we said we'd investigate."

"He has a point," said Usopp.

"A very good one," said Franky. "It almost makes me want to give up."

"_No,_" Luffy said, leaping to his feet with flashing eyes. The rest of the group turned to stare at him. "_No._ We won't stop. We'll follow Robin. We'll talk to Robin. The Shandoras are a different thing, and I promised Conis we'd do that later when she doesn't have to be involved. But this thing about Robin we _have_ to finish."

There was silence for a moment. The group stared at Luffy, and then exchanged nervous glances.

"Does he know something else that we don't?" Franky asked Usopp in a whisper.

"I doubt it," Usopp replied. "He'd be the one to blab it, not keep quiet and reference it cryptically."

"Then this is just Luffy being his usual stubborn self?" asked Chopper.

If Zoro or Conis happened to feel that something was wrong with that assessment, they kept it to themselves. Chopper, Franky and Usopp exchanged a long look, but there was no definite conclusion to be found.

"So, are we just going with this because we don't really have a reason to say no?" asked Usopp, his tone oozing exhaustion.

"I do want to help Vivi," Chopper insisted.

"Yeah, I know, I do too, but…" Usopp sighed. "Is this really helping her? Or are we just following some cock and bull story that Luffy made up without any particular explanation?"

"He wouldn't do that," said Chopper at once.

"Yeah, that would be you," Franky added.

"Shut up! I didn't mean that Luffy lied-"

"I never lied!" Luffy added, glaring accusingly. "Is that what you think? I didn't lie!"

"I'm saying that I don't think you did!" snapped Usopp. "But you're _you_. Honestly, wouldn't you usually be the first one to tell Vivi what you saw without the slightest regard for consequences? But instead here we are, hiding away and trying to find proof, which is as unlike you as anything!"

"I don't like hurting my friends," said Luffy with narrowed eyes. "If I tell Vivi, I'll hurt her—and even more if I'm wrong. I don't want to be wrong. Besides…I agree with Franky."

"What? On what point?"

"That Robin's not a bad guy."

"Since when do you call her Robin, anyway?"

"Since I felt like it."

"I hope you don't do that in class…" sighed Usopp.

"Or maybe you should try," suggested Conis. "Like a code that we're looking out for her."

"Oh, come on! No one would get that! All she'd get is that one of her students is being creepy and trying to call her by her first name with no explanation!"

"You mean…" Chopper gulped nervously. "You mean she'd think Luffy was hitting on her?"

They all looked around at Luffy, who was once again not paying attention to the conversation in favor of trying to catch a moth.

"She'd never think that," Franky and Usopp chorused.

"Actually," added Franky, "she'd probably just take it in stride. It's Luffy we're talking about, after all."

The group sighed. Zoro snored. Luffy caught two moths (in his _fists_, Usopp winced with sympathy for the unfortunate creatures) and cheered.

* * *

"Where are we?" Luffy asked several hours later, as he and Conis crawled their way through passages much narrower and with lower ceilings than most.

"Where- but I thought you were leading, Mr. Luffy!"

"I don't even know where we're going," said Luffy.

"But she was right in the middle of the street! _You_ said that following her in the street would be a bad idea, and that we should look for her in the passages!"

"I meant that we should go in the direction she was headed through the passages."

"We did that. We didn't find her."

"So…am I correct in assuming that we're wandering around aimlessly now?"

"I guess so. I'm just sort of going with the flow."

Conis sighed. "And you don't know where we are in relation to the town?"

"We're probably outside the walls, but I don't know."

Conis determinedly did not sigh again. "Alright, then—we'll leave the tunnels at the first exit we can find."

"Isn't that one?" asked Luffy. Conis followed his gaze and saw a faint square of light in the ceiling above them.

"Maybe," she said. Luffy reached up and pushed. Nothing happened. He pushed again, and light flooded the tunnel. Luffy hoisted himself out, and Conis followed, blinking in the suddenly blinding light. She heard the _thump_ that was probably the trap door closing again, but was still blinking, trying to regain her sight.

As the world came into focus, the first thing that Conis noticed was _orange_. Orange, orange, orange—ah, they were in the pumpkin patch. She looked around at the vast expanse of pumpkins in all directions, and her heart sank. They were somewhere in the middle of the pumpkin patch, and she wasn't even sure which way was back.

"So, Conis, which way home?" asked Luffy.

Conis looked at the sun. It was high in the sky—it was probably around noon. She shook her head despairingly. "I really don't know, Mr. Luffy."

She felt for the trap door—but even as she felt around the seemingly even ground, she wondered how they would open a trapdoor with no handle.

"Alright, then—let's pick a direction and start walking. This way seems about right." And they began making their way diagonally through the pumpkin patch, tripping over pumpkins as they went.

They had been walking for quite a while when a shout reached them.

"Hey! Hey, you two! Young 'uns!"

They looked around, and saw Mr. Fall galloping towards them on the back of his horse, Pierre.

"What are you doing here?" he called to them. "Here to steal my pumpkins?"

"No, of course not!" objected Conis. "We would never- I mean-"

"Relax, I was just teasing," said Mr. Fall amicably. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"We're looking for Robin Nico," said Luffy.

There was a pause as Mr. Fall reached them and Pierre stopped.

"I can't be certain, of course, but I'm reasonably certain that she isn't among my pumpkins."

"Yeah, I kind of thought she might not be."

"Will you be heading home, then?"

"Well, yeah, but we don't really know which way is home."

"No worries, I can point you in the right direction. But why don't you come by my place first? I haven't had company in a while—I'll prepare you some cabbage stew."

Luffy and Conis exchanged a glance.

"Cabbage?"

"Yep."

"Do you grow cabbages?"

"In a patch behind my house, yep."

"But…you grow so many pumpkins."

"Yeah, I've always reasoned that a farmer should grow what he likes, but only a little bit of his favorite vegetable. That way he never gets sick of it."

"So you're sick of pumpkins, old man?"

"Mr. Luffy!" exclaimed Conis. "You can't call him that!"

"No matter, no matter," laughed Mr. Fall. "Come with me. We'll have some nice cabbage stew."

"Can I ride your horse?" asked Luffy.

"No," said Mr. Fall.

"Okay, then." Luffy did not appear particularly concerned with the rejection.

"Follow me!" called the farmer, and broke into a gallop once more.

"Come on, Conis!" laughed Luffy, racing after the horse.

Conis ran after them, too busy trying to catch up to even call out to them to slow down. It was Luffy who realized her problem just before she lost sight of the horse and the boy across the pumpkin patch. Mr. Fall stopped Pierre, and Luffy came running back.

"Come on, hop onto my back," he said.

Conis stared.

"Come on, the old man's waiting!"

Breathing too heavily to correct him, Conis did as she was told. Luffy broke into a run almost as soon as she was off the ground, and she found herself wondering if he was competing with Pierre, or if he just found it fun to run around with people on his back.

Luffy was scarcely even winded when they reached Mr. Fall's little cabin and cabbage patch at the center of the pumpkin patch.

"Cabbage stew!" Luffy said excitedly even as he set Conis back on her feet. "Come on, old man, I'm hungry now!"

"Mr. Luffy!" panted Conis.

"No matter, no matter!" Mr. Fall was laughing as he alighted from Pierre's back and removed the bridle. He left the blanket on the horse's back and gave him a slap on the flank. Pierre neighed and galloped off. "The stew is left over from yesterday, so it'll just take 3 minutes in the microwave. So, we're reaching the end of Mayor Slap's term in office…"

"Oh," said Luffy. "I don't really pay attention to politics."

"Really?" Mr. Fall raised a brow as he let them into his house. "But it's your town."

"But we're too young to vote," Conis pointed out. "And besides, there isn't really anyone else around who would run for office."

"Ah—there's always someone around," smiled Mr. Fall, removing the stew from the fridge. "There's never been an unenvied seat of authority, no matter how big or small."

"Really?" asked Conis. "Fuchsia and the Institute never seem to have any problems like that."

"The keyword there is 'seem'—be careful of confusing what seems to be with what is. Things rarely work out that well."

Conis bit her lip. Mr. Fall filled 3 bowls with stew, covered them each with a plate and stacked them up, and put the stack in the microwave. Once it was set for 3 minutes, he looked to them again.

"If you're not interested in politics, what's got you running around looking for the Nico girl?"

"What's Robin got to do with the mayor?" countered Luffy.

Mr. Fall stared a moment, and then began to laugh. "Of course, of course. But what is it, then?"

"We think something…odd is happening at the Institute," said Conis. "And we think that if we can figure out what Miss Nico is trying to do, we could figure out what's really happening."

Mr. Fall sighed and shook his head. "I see. I'd say that you'd do better to stop poking your noses where they don't belong…" -he glanced at Luffy- "but you wouldn't listen to me even if I did, would you?"

"Nope," Luffy replied.

"Why?" asked Conis, leaning forward eagerly. "What do you know about Miss Nico?"

"Enough to know that if you're going to poke around her, you'd do better to learn some basic politics."

"Why? Is something happening at the Institute?" Conis asked.

Mr. Fall licked his lips. "Let's just say…there are some people who are worried that Mayor Slap might not make it to the next elections."

"Why's that?"

Mr. Fall shook his head. "Rumors aren't easy to pin down. But the mayor himself told me that he's hired a number of undercover bodyguards."

"That sounds…serious," said Conis, sounding lost in the middle of confused, alarmed and disbelieving.

"It does, doesn't it?"

"What's that got to do with Robin?" asked Luffy.

"If there are secret bodyguards hiding around Fuchsia, then I am almost certain that Robin Nico helped put them where they are."

The microwave dinged. Mr. Fall removed the bowls and placed one each in front of Luffy and Conis at the table. He put the third in front of himself, and removed the plate. Mr. Fall and Conis took off the plate carefully, directing the gust of steam away from them; Luffy inadvertently got a face full of hot steam and nearly knocked over the table in his recoil.

"So…what do you suggest we do?" asked Conis.

"Whatever you think best," smiled Mr. Fall. "But brace yourself if you keep poking around. And if you do keep poking around…you should find the Bones guy in the passages."

"You know about the passages?" gasped Conis.

"Anyone who's been in Fuchsia for an extended period has stumbled across them at least once. But no one truly knows how to navigate them—except the Bones guy, if he's still around."

"Bones guy…" Conis glanced at Luffy and bit her lip. Luffy, who appeared to have stopped listening some time back, took a bite of stew.

"This is awesome!" he declared at the top of his lungs. "This is really awesome stew! Can I come eat it again?"

"Naturally," smiled Mr. Fall.

* * *

"I really didn't think it would take that long for those idiots to give in and apologize," sighed Nami.

"The silence is getting eerie," Vivi said with an echoing sigh. "I didn't think that Luffy would be so stubborn to dislike Kohza."

"It's because he's a moron," growled Nami. "No concept of where he ought to be putting his stubbornness."

"Now, now, ladies—don't stress yourselves out so much. Have a nice, soothing cup of camomile tea."

"Thank you, Sanji," said Nami absently, accepting her mug and ignoring the _squee_s and _melorine_s that broke out to her right.

"Thank you, Sanji," echoed Vivi, accepting her own mug without even looking at Sanji. "But Nami, that's just the thing. Luffy never has been wrongly stubborn. I think maybe…" She bit her lip. "Kohza has been a little…secretive."

Nami's brow furrowed. "Secretive how?"

Vivi shook her head. "I can't imagine him being alright with the way our gang has fallen apart, especially if he considered his own stubbornness to be the cause."

"He probably doesn't realize that it's his fault."

"Are you sure? Luffy sees things surprisingly clearly."

"I still say it's probably something ridiculous like jealousy."

"Jealous of what, though? Have you ever seen Luffy get jealous of anyone for any reason?"

"Well…no, but there's a first time for everything!"

"I don't believe that-"

"Isn't that Miss Nico?" Nami's eyes had suddenly gone sharp, and she was staring at something outside of Sanji's kitchen window. Sanji and Vivi turned around to watch the brunette walk hurriedly past, looking around nervously in a way that all three could instantly define as out of character.

She passed from one side to the other as she made her way up the street past Sanji's apartment, and there was a moment's silence after she left their field of vision.

"Is anyone else remembering what I'm remembering?" asked Vivi.

"If you're talking about what I saw, then I'm so honored that you would think of me!" cooed Sanji.

"Is there anything down that way?" asked Nami.

"No, just a few more buildings and a dead…end…" Sanji trailed off as he exchanged a look with Vivi and Nami. "I must go look after the lady! You stay here, just in case-"

"We're coming with you," said Nami firmly, grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair. Vivi was doing the same. "If we left this to you, you'd probably charge straight in at the first sign of trouble and we'd never find out what's going on."

"I am so blessed to have your faith, Miss Nami!"

"The lack thereof, you mean."

"Let us go and save Miss- I mean Mrs…No!" Sanji straightened and clenched a fist. "She shall always be a single beauty in my mind—I shall never think of her as Mrs. anyone! Except maybe me-"

"Come on, Sanji!" snapped Nami from the doorway. "We're leaving!"

By the time they reached the dead end, Miss Nico was nowhere to be seen.

"I _told_ you not to waste time," Nami glared at Sanji. "This is all your fault."

"We were getting our coats too," Vivi said gently. "So really, it's both our faults."

There was a dull _thud_ and a low groan. The trio looked to the direction: it was coming from a narrow alleyway between two of the apartment buildings. They approached the alley, keeping their steps soft. As they came closer, they could hear more.

The alleyway was dark, and it was impossible to see anything in it in detail, but when they squinted they could see a large form and a smaller form. As they approached, they could make out the slick hair and billowing fur coat that the man was wearing which distinguished him as Sir Crocodile. The one he was talking to was no doubt Miss Nico.

"How dare-" Sanji began, but was promptly cut off by Nami's hand slapping over his mouth. She pulled them to the side against the wall of one of the buildings, out of sight from the pair. The murmur of a furious deep voice and the answering whispers of Miss Nico's voice were audible, but the conversation was nowhere near intelligible.

"I'm moving closer," Nami whispered. "Sanji, don't you dare make a sound."

They inched along the wall closer to the alley, but just as they thought they might be able to make out some words, the voices fell abruptly silent. The trio froze, scarcely daring to breathe lest it make a sound that revealed their presence.

Then there was a _thud_ and an anguished cry that was unmistakably female. Nami had to kick Sanji in the shin to keep him from charging into the alleyway.

"I hope you understand," said Crocodile's voice. "Next time, I will not be so lenient."

"Yes, sir," Miss Nico's voice whispered.

Crocodile's voice rumbled a reply, but Nami was already dragging Sanji frantically away from the alley, and Vivi following; they ducked into the entrance of the apartment building just as Crocodile emerged and calmly made his way down the street.

"Wait until he's out of sight," Nami hissed, holding Sanji back. "Then we'll go check on Miss Nico."

They waited exactly five seconds after Crocodile turned the corner at the end of the street before rushing out of their hiding spot and to the alley. Miss Nico was still there, curled up in a ball on the ground and gasping for breath.

"Miss Nico," Vivi exclaimed, kneeling beside the woman. "What did he _do_ to you?"

"Don't touch me!" snapped Miss Nico, slapping Vivi's hand away. "Nothing has been done to me. I had a stomach ache, that's all." As if to prove this, she straightened her body; yet none of the three failed to notice the way tension coiled in her brow, in her lips, as though she were pushing herself to fight something.

"We can help you," implored Sanji. "You don't have to stick with that man—we'll protect you."

Miss Nico laughed a laugh that was cold and dark, and held no trace of joy or mirth.

"_Protect _me? And how do you expect to do that, I wonder? You don't even know what you would be trying to protect me _from_."

"We'll take him in to Mr. Gen," said Nami. "There are _laws_ against this, once he was locked up you wouldn't have to worry about a thing-"

"No, Miss Mikan," said Miss Nico, her eyes flashing. "You have no idea what it means to live in this town—what it means to hold a position of power at this Institute, let alone what it would mean to overthrow Sir Crocodile. You had best forget about this. I will be alright."

And she began walking out of the alley and down the street.

"But…Miss Robin!" Sanji protested. "I promise, we can-"

"Oh, do spare yourself the humiliation," sighed Miss Nico. "I said I'm fine. Are you planning on following me home against my will? This, at least, I could report and have all three of you locked away, if I cared to. Leave me alone. Go back to your gang, and stay near that leader of yours—or leave the gang and stay far, far away from him. Whichever you think seems best."

Nami, Vivi and Sanji watched her go, and then exchanged a look of bafflement.

"What do you make of that?" Nami asked after a long moment.

"I…really don't even know where to start wondering what just happened," Vivi replied.

"I'm going to go kick that Crocodile guy so hard he'll never-"

"No, Sanji, you won't," snapped Nami. "This may not be exactly what we expected when we came after Miss Nico, but completely _ignoring_ her would be a bad move. I think we ought to start looking into Crocodile—I think she might mean that he has more people willing to do his bidding without question around here than anyone really knows."

"What gives you that idea?" asked Vivi over Sanji's anguished cries on Miss Nico's behalf.

"I…had a problem that Crocodile offered to help me with once. It wasn't exactly something that struck me as a bad deal, but something about the whole situation makes me…it gives me the shivers."

"He asked you to strip, didn't he?" demanded Sanji. "That perverted-"

"_No_—nothing like that. There wasn't even anything blatantly _wrong_ about it, but the fact that he knew that something very wrong was going on and didn't _do_ anything about it… Something's not right in this town."

"Everyone knows _that_," said Vivi with a roll of her eyes. "I mean, no one even knows what this town is, and yet orphans get sent here from all over the country. And how no children born here live past 5 years of age without being orphaned—it's like Orphan Land."

"Really?" chorused Nami and Sanji.

"Oh…" said Vivi, realizing that both had been raised, if not born, in Fuchsia. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine," said Sanji. "It isn't as though people in Fuchsia are completely unaware that it's odd. But the deaths are all accidents, and because there ended up being so many orphans, the fact is that we have a very cheap, very good orphanage—it makes sense that children all around the country would be sent here."

"I suppose…" Vivi didn't sound convinced.

"In any case, we have a more pressing issue," said Nami. "If we're going to try to investigate Crocodile and Miss Nico, we should get the others together—Vivi, do you think you could put your disagreement with Luffy on hold for a little while?"

"Of course," smiled Vivi. She didn't say she was relieved to know that she had an excuse to rejoin the others.

She was sure the other two heard the words anyway.

* * *

"Thank you for joining me at such short notice," said Kuzan Aokiji, chancellor of WG Institute. "But we have an emergency situation that we need to discuss. Mr. Cutty?"

Iceburg Cutty, president of WG College, stood and straightened his tie.

"It came to my attention yesterday afternoon, when my assistant Mr. Kirin and I were going through the printed personnel files, that there has been some tampering. We sorted the files, and took an inventory based on the computer files. All files pertaining to groundskeepers and gardeners of this Institute are missing. It could have happened at any time since the last inventory check three months ago."

"Wait a second," said Mr. Shanks Red, vice-principal of WG High School. "If the computer files are still in tact, is this even a problem? Everything in the printed files is in the computer files, isn't it?"

"It turns out that these particular files never got updated," said Mr. Cutty. "The computer files only contain the names of persons hired. All details, including living situations, salary, insurance, and everything else the files ought to contain are missing."

"More importantly," said Sir Crocodile, principal of WG High School, "we have a security breach."

"Precisely," said Mr. Cutty. "And security camera footage was unedited."

"You mean…we have a record of the theft?" asked Makino Red, headmistress of WG Orphanage.

"In a way," said Mr. Cutty. "Mr. Kirin and I reviewed the footage with Miss Califa and Mr. Roper's assistance—and I feel compelled to tell you that there were always at least 2 people watching the footage together—and no one was in proximity of the files who did not have an excuse at the time."

"So it's an inside job," said Mr. Red.

"I assume that you made a list of people who touched the file in question?" asked Mr. Aokiji.

"There was a slight difficulty: the file was located at a bad angle from the camera, and to begin with, security footage doesn't have very good resolution. We made a list of persons who touched files in the vicinity of the missing files, but we have no way to ascertain whether they were the files in question."

"Let's see the list," said Sir Crocodile.

Mr. Cutty's lips thinned, but he passed out copies of a list of names.

"And all these people had reason to be in that area of the filing section, correct?" asked Mrs. Red.

Mr. Cutty nodded. "We can only assume that whoever stole the file did so while accessing another file."

"Miss Califa and Mrs. Red I understand…but who are these other people?" asked Mr. Aokiji.

"Students," said Mr. Red. He frowned as he took in the names on the list.

* * *

Paulie Roper paced restlessly outside the conference room.

"Do calm down," said Califa. "We all want to know what conclusion they reached, but you're only making me feel more uneasy."

Paulie sat down, but his foot continued tapping at the floor tirelessly. He didn't even notice Califa's furious glare.

"Think they'll suspect you or Mrs. Red?" asked Paulie after a moment.

"With that list of students?" asked Califa, narrowing her eyes. "Doubtful."

"Nami Mikan's a model student-"

"Was. Nowadays she seems to be a little wild."

"Still, she wouldn't steal. Keimi Ningyo is like goodness personified-"

"She's a dumb blonde."

"Smoker Taisa seems likely, until you realize that he's got an airtight alibi-"

"I don't think that's how that word's meant to be used."

"Because there were too many people around, then!"

"He could have planned it."

"With six people staring him down, including yourself? Doubtful. Tashigi Tsuru is too straightforward-"

"I'd call her a dumber blonde than Keimi, except she's not blonde."

"-So they'll be cracking down on…" Paulie broke off. "Califa…"

"Yes?"

"You could be kinder to the students."

"I see them for what they are. And Paulie?"

"Stop staring at my legs or I'll sue you for sexual harassment."

"I wasn't-"

That was when the door opened. Califa and Paulie's heads spun around to look at the people filing out of the room, somber expressions on their faces.

"Did you reach a consensus?" asked Paulie.

Mr. Cutty's expression was grim. "As soon as they knew that Mr. Taisa was clear, they decided by a majority ruling to take action against Mr. Wiper Shandora."


	6. Kohza Yuba

_Author's note: First of all, I would like to emphasize that in my One Piece fan fiction, I try to keep as close to canon as possible in regards to approaches to romance on principle. But with that said, this is (sort of) high school. So there are implications and teasing of varying magnitude. But there's not going to be anything very definitive, if you were worried. I felt the need to say this after noting that this chapter contains mentions of Usopp/Kaya and Kohza/Vivi as well as Wiper-Conis interaction (which, if you follow my One Piece writing, you probably know is something like my One Piece OTP)._

_Second of all, this spur of updates was brought to you by bad internet in combination with the necessity of internet in order to complete tasks I have to complete in real life. My life will now officially take over for a while again. I might manage to update before the end of September, but it's not likely. But I will update! And finish! Honestly, it'll probably only take one more bout of enthusiastic writing to get through the last 3 chapters, because after this it's very much plot, action, plot, reveal. I'd write it right now if I had the time._

_Lastly and most importantly, this chapter is dedicated to the three wonderful reviewers who motivated me to spend my non-internet time writing this: All the Aspects, SniperKingSogeking0341 and archsage328._

**Deeper Than the World**

**5: Kohza Yuba**

When everything is said and done, most things that happen in the world are dictated by timing. A change of tide in battles, the swaying of a heart in love, the salvaging of a crumbling friendship: these important events cannot be executed if the timing is wrong. A man may love a woman who loves him back, but lose her because he missed his timing to tell her of his feelings. A battle may be lost because a general didn't take a brief opportunity to charge further behind enemy lines and chose to await a better opportunity that never arrived.

Though of course no one could know it, the future of Luffy's gang was dictated by the fact that Nami happened to decide that they ought to leave bars for last as she, Sanji and Vivi searched for Luffy. How could they have known that they walked past Blueno's bar when the others had just gathered in the back? How could they have known that had they had rejoined at that point, the inclusion of Nami and Sanji in the group's following operation may have changed the course of everything that happened afterwards?

But it was not to be. Sanji's whines that all the beautiful ladies gathered in the bar was met with a glare from Nami, who insisted that they would not search bars until they had searched everywhere else, because otherwise she was certain that Sanji would get sucked into the bottomless vortex that was alcohol and women, and they'd never be able to leave until Gen arrived—to bring them into the station, more likely than not. So they walked past the bar.

Not a minute later, a certain young man entered the bar. He scanned the room and then made his way straight to the back door, where he poked his head out and saw Luffy and the others.

"I've been looking for you," Kohza announced, stepping out and closing the door behind him. "I need to talk to you."

There was a beat as everyone stared at Kohza.

"W- we don't know anything about your involvement with Miss Nico!" squeaked Usopp. "We haven't been-"

Franky's fist slammed into Usopp's stomach, cutting him off. Kohza was smiling wryly.

"I thought it might be something like that," said Kohza. "That's why I decided to come and talk to you."

"What do you want to do to Vivi, you bastard?!" exclaimed Luffy.

"Wait, don't go throwing accusations around!" Franky said. "He's here to talk to us, so let's listen."

"What if he tries to brainwash us?" asked Usopp in a stage whisper that everyone could hear.

"He can do that?" asked Chopper, frozen on the spot.

"Just be quiet and listen to the boy, would you?" snapped Franky.

"I'm sorry," said Kohza, his brow furrowed as he looked between them. "I think there's some sort of miscommunication—I don't want to harm Vivi. I'd never want that."

"S-so what are you doing with those guns?" snapped Usopp.

"It's part of the reason I could come up here," Kohza said. "Being an assistant gardener is just a cover. I'm one of twelve hired bodyguards here in Fuchsia, hired to protect Mayor Woop Slap."

"Oh!" said Luffy, and his face cleared. "Now that you mention it, the old pumpkin man was saying something about that. So you're actually a good guy, then?"

"I thought so—but I'm not sure anymore. And that's where I need your help."

"Wait, what?" said Usopp. "I'm not following."

"It sounds like there's a story!" said Chopper. "Is there a story?"

"Start at the beginning, kid," said Franky.

"It all started back when Vivi came here," Kohza began. "There was the whole issue of Kuro, and in any case it's not exactly ordinary for a person from a family as influential as Vivi's to hop off to another country without proper protection. So I started trying to find ways to come here as a bodyguard, using the fact that Kuro might be here as an excuse.

"But the thing is, Robin Nico contacted me and told me that Kuro wouldn't be a good excuse, because what if he got caught before my visa got issued? She told me that there was some suspicion that there was a plan to assassinate Mayor Woop Slap, and that I should apply to be one of his bodyguards. It was a longer process, because I had to be properly hired at a job here—that's how I ended up being an assistant gardener.

"So I got my visa and plane ticket, and came here. For a while, things seemed pretty normal—I do my normal job during regular hours, and at other times I'm assigned shifts to keep an eye on the mayor. But of course, no one can know that I'm a bodyguard, and so I have to stay inconspicuous.

"But the thing is, the mayor's never been assigned a proper bodyguard. And I understand that it makes sense that most of us are undercover—we don't know who might be trying to kill the man, or when, so it's easier if they don't know who we are. But usually you'd at least have one or two official bodyguards, because all the sneaking around wouldn't help at all if, say, someone pulled a gun and shot at him. Whereas if there's already someone standing next to him, they can shove him out of the way, or something.

"So I asked my contact—Robin Nico, obviously—why she didn't assign one or two of us to that job. Her reply wasn't exactly a…_reply_ per se, but she heavily implied that that would be asking for trouble. Which got me thinking, and I realized…"

Kohza swallowed. Usopp, Chopper, Luffy and Franky followed suit. Zoro made a sound that was half way between a snore and a cough. No one had to look to know that he was asleep.

"I don't know anyone involved in this operation except Robin Nico. I don't know who any of the other bodyguards are—I don't actually even know if the mayor himself knows we've been hired! I mean, I always assumed so, since he doesn't seem concerned by the fact that he's being followed…but what if he genuinely hasn't noticed? What if all this about an assassination is-"

"The mayor knows," said Luffy. "The pumpkin guy said the slap guy told him."

Kohza blinked, but after a moment, nodded. "I see. That's a relief. No, but still!" He shook his head and slapped his palms to his knees.

"I spent the last week keeping an eye out for other people following the mayor. Because, you know, at the very least they ought to have two or more of us on duty at once. But there are times when I can _swear_ that there's no one else around. And furthermore, with the _bodyguards_ sneaking around, isn't it just as probable that one of us is the assassin, just biding his time till he can make the excuse that he's not the assassin because clearly, if he were, he'd have pulled the trigger a long time ago?"

The four conscious parties exchanged a look.

"It seriously took you weeks to figure out that there's something amiss with that whole scenario?" asked Franky.

"No, actually," said Usopp, "at least the sneaking around part makes sense. I mean, maybe not anywhere else, but this is Fuchsia, Nothing Central. Come on, if there were even one bodyguard hanging around the mayor, the town would go wild and the ruckus would make a _super_ time for an assassin to turn up and go _bang_ or _stab_ and no one would even figure out who did it because it's a crowd full of people we think we know!"

The others stared at Usopp for a moment.

"I'm almost tempted to wonder if you were emotionally traumatized by the fact that Klahadore was Kuro," Franky remarked.

"Shut up!" snapped Usopp. "It's not _me,_ it was Kaya!"

A resounding snore made everyone jump, and this time they looked. Luffy and Zoro were snoring in chorus.

"They're _both_ not interested," sighed Franky.

"No, they just don't like listening to longwinded stories," said Usopp.

"But I _like_ stories!" said Chopper.

"Even this one?" asked Usopp.

"Well, uh…"

"Thought so."

"But _Usopp,_" Chopper implored, "we have to do something. What if the mayor does get assassinated, and-"

"First of all," said Usopp, turning a glare on Kohza, "don't you think it's _odd_ that the mayor of a tiny backwater town like Fuchsia that no one knows about would get _assassinated_? I mean, what is there in this town that's _so valuable_ that-"

"The Institute," Kohza replied coolly. "The anonymity of a backwater town that no one knows about where there are nevertheless several powerful people."

"Wait, what?" But Franky's confusion went unheard.

"Vivi wasn't sent here at random. She was sent here because it's honestly the _best place in the United States_, especially for people from powerful families who might be targeted by all sorts of things otherwise."

"Like what?" asked Luffy.

"When did _you_ start listening again?" asked Usopp, but no one paid him any heed.

"Like _assassins_," said Kohza. "Look—there's _royalty_ in your Institute. Doesn't that strike you as odd for just another backwater town?"

"You mean Princess Shirahoshi?" asked Chopper. "But she's just from a little African country."

"She's still royalty," said Kohza. "And her brothers graduated from here before her. Just think—the mayor of Fuchsia would have a certain amount of influence with the Institute. They'd have several people who are probably going to become world powers right under their _noses_. There's a reason why the political science department in your Institute is so huge."

"Wow," remarked Luffy. "So this really _is_ an awesome place, huh? Gramps said something like that when he sent me here, but everyone seemed so normal that I figured he'd lied."

"Who's your grandpa?" asked Usopp suspiciously. "Another ridiculously important person?"

"Oh, he wasn't bringing me here because of _him_," laughed Luffy. "He said people might try to use me to get at Pops."

"Who's _pops_?" asked Franky.

"My dad."

"I got that—who is he?"

"Dunno."

A beat.

"Let me get this straight," said Usopp, shaking his head. "Your grandfather claimed to have sent you here to protect you from being hurt on account of a father you don't know?"

"Yep."

"What about your mother?" asked Chopper.

"I think she's dead, but I'm not sure," said Luffy.

"Do you at least know her name?" asked Franky.

"Nope."

The group stared at Luffy for a moment before turning back to Kohza.

"Getting back to a more normal conversation," said Usopp. "Assuming that what you—and apparently Luffy's grandpa—claim is true, then we have more to worry about than just the mayor's assassination."

"Why?" chorused Chopper, Luffy and Franky.

"Because clearly, if a person wants to gain control over Fuchsia and the institute so badly that they're willing to resort to assassination, there's only one thing that they can possibly want."

"What's that?"

"They're trying to take over the world!"

There was another beat, and this time everyone was staring at Usopp, including Zoro.

"Has anyone ever suggested therapy?" asked Zoro. "This is no way to live, being permanently concerned that the world is going to get taken over."

"I'm not!"

"You said the same thing about Kuro," Luffy pointed out. "Remember? But he wasn't trying to take over the world—just Kaya's fortune."

"Well, maybe I was a bit paranoid about that…but look, he was trying to kill Kaya! He locked me up in a basement!"

"I'm pretty sure you were calling wolf _before_ the basement," Luffy said.

"Oh, come on, what do you have, selective memory?" snapped Usopp. "You'd never have remembered something like that if it had been something we read in English class!"

Luffy shrugged.

"Can we _please_ get back on topic?" asked Kohza. "My shift with Mayor Slap starts in about fifteen minutes."

"You could have come when you had more time," Chopper pointed out.

"This is _urgent_," said Kohza.

"So what, exactly, are you asking us to do?" asked Franky.

"Be Mayor Slap's bodyguards," said Kohza.

The group blinked at him.

"What makes you think we can do that?" asked Usopp.

"You guys stopped Kuro, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, but that was more of a…team effort sort of occasion."

"Look, if the mayor knows he's in danger, it's easy. Just walk up to him, tell him you're a bit worried and you'd like to keep an eye out for him."

"What if he says no?" asked Chopper.

"Then convince him!"

"I don't get it—why don't you do it?" asked Usopp. "Or at least offer to do it in shifts with us?"

"Because I think that there should still be at least one person undercover, that no one knows about."

"And this can't be any of us because…?"

"Because everyone already knows about your gang," said Kohza, rolling his eyes as though this ought to have been obvious. "If one of you is blatantly hanging around the mayor and another is slinking around in the background, _every single person in this town_ will know that the one slinking around in the background is watching the mayor."

"Oh," said Luffy. "Alright, then."

"And…I know this might be a bit much to ask, but I have another request," said Kohza. "Could you maybe not tell Vivi about this?"

"Why?" asked Usopp, brow furrowed.

"I wouldn't ask if you were all getting along, but there's this split anyway," said Kohza. "And if you tell her, she'd want to join you. If she gets hurt…" He gulped. "I mean, she might be the one to change our country! She's too valuable to put in danger that way. And if the assassin happens to have designs on Alabasta…"

"But what about the rest of us?" demanded Usopp.

"Never mind that, Usopp," grinned Luffy. He looked at Kohza. "I like your dedication! We'll do it!"

"We will?" asked Usopp faintly.

"But I don't even know how to drop and roll," whimpered Chopper.

"Super!" grinned Franky.

"Bring it on," yawned Zoro.

"Shouldn't we wait for Conis?" asked Usopp.

"If she hasn't turned up yet, I doubt that she will tonight," said Zoro.

"So," said Luffy. "Where's the mayor?"

They left the alley behind the bar and followed Kohza to a big house at the edge of the woods, a few streets down from Kaya's house and near the beginning of the path to the broken shack that they had intended as their base.

"It's nicer than your girlfriend's house," Zoro remarked.

"She's not my girlfriend!" snapped Usopp. "And Kaya's house is bigger!"

Any retort Zoro might have made was lost when the front gate opened and a short, feeble-looking old man appeared.

"Can I help you?" asked Mayor Slap, eyeing them suspiciously.

"Isn't this bad?" Franky muttered under his breath, turning to look at Kohza—but the younger man was already nowhere in sight. Franky raised his brows. "I suppose he _is_ a pro, after all."

"We heard people want to kill you, so we're here to save you!" Luffy chirped.

"Could you try to exercise a _little_ bit of delicacy?" muttered Usopp.

"I exercise all the time," Luffy grinned.

"Ah…I give up," said Usopp. "Zoro, do something." Zoro opened his mouth. "No, wait! Don't say anything. You'll make it worse."

"Who went mad and made _you_ the boss?" asked Zoro, rolling his eyes.

"Thank you for your concern," Mayor Slap piped up just as it looked like they might forget why they had come here in the first place. "But I'm afraid I have to decline your offer."

"Why?" asked Franky coolly. "If your life is in danger, a little caution wouldn't go amiss. And even if it isn't, it's not as if you'd lose anything by letting us stand guard just in case. We're not asking for anything in return."

"Nothing costs more than that which is freely offered," said Mayor Slap. "I have a number of measures in place in case the rumor turns out to be true, but it's highly unlikely. This isn't a position worth killing for—anyone who wants this seat can participate in the next election."

"But-"

"Thank you for your concern. Have a good evening." And the gate slammed shut. They heard the click of a lock sliding into place.

"Well, that was useless," sighed Chopper. "What do we do now?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" grinned Usopp. "Nothing is useless where there's a mystery. He knows his life is in danger but doesn't want protection—that's another piece of this puzzle we're trying to work out."

"I don't know what puzzle you're playing with these days," sighed Luffy, "but I'm here to keep that guy from being killed whether he wants to be saved or not."

"And how do you intend to save a man who doesn't want to be saved?" asked Usopp.

"He can tell us not to be his bodyguards, but he can't tell us not to follow him around, can he?"

"Oh!" said Chopper, his eyes lighting up. "Of course!"

"That's the spirit!" grinned Franky.

"I'm pretty sure there're laws against stalking," said Usopp, but no one seemed to hear him.

"Let's do it, then," said Zoro.

"We can just convert Operation Nico Watch to Operation Mayor Watch, can't we?" said Chopper.

"That sounds good," Franky agreed. "The schedule ought to work out and everything."

"Except for the fact that that schedule was for _spying_. This schedule is for _guarding_. I don't know about you guys, but I'm confident that I'd be useless if a couple assassins came at the mayor under my watch."

"Don't worry, it'll work out," grinned Luffy.

"I'll try my best!" said Chopper.

"What about Conis?" asked Franky. "We can't just assign her up as part of this. Luffy, Zoro, you two can fight, right?"

"Yep," grinned Luffy.

"Do you have to ask?" smirked Zoro.

"Then you two take Conis' shifts in addition to your own. How you split up the shifts is your own business, but now we don't have to worry about people getting lost so much as people getting beat up."

"I call first shift!" said Luffy.

"You have the night shift tonight," Usopp pointed out. "I'm not switching with you. Go get some sleep. Zoro can take over for Conis."

"Sounds good to me," said Zoro.

"Just remember to keep a really, really close eye on Zoro," whispered Chopper to Usopp.

"Like I'd forget," snorted Usopp.

Chopper and Franky started back to the bar, dragging Luffy with them as he babbled about bodyguards and awesomeness.

"Luffy!" snapped Chopper. "You've got to get some sleep now, or you'll never make it through the night shift!"

"I can do it!" grinned Luffy.

"But it's not healthy," retorted Chopper. "Sleep!"

"Fine," said Luffy. And he proceeded to lead them back to Blueno's bar.

"Didn't you say you'd sleep?" muttered Franky.

"I have homework, so I have to go home now," said Chopper.

"And I have work _and_ lesson plans _and_ grades to submit with individual reports, so I have to go home too."

Luffy frowned. "See, this is why we need that secret base."

"You mean the one in the woods?" asked Franky.

"Yeah! Then we can have a place to study, and a place to eat, and places to nap and everything!"

"That sounds awesome!" chirped Chopper, his eyes practically sparkling.

"Doesn't it?" grinned Luffy.

Franky glanced between them, and sighed. "Don't worry, Usopp and I are working on it—well, it's more like I'm working on it and Usopp's trying to help out. But you'll have your secret hide away eventually."

But Luffy wasn't listening. He had suddenly stopped, his expression thoughtful.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" muttered Chopper.

"We're thinking alike," said Franky.

"I've decided," said Luffy, "that we have something more important to do."

"Which is _what_?" asked Franky.

"More important than _what?_" asked Chopper.

"If you're really busy you can go home, and I'll work on it alone," said Luffy.

Franky and Chopper exchanged a glance of understanding—whatever _it _was, Luffy working alone spelled _bad idea_. But then,

"Luffy!" came a familiar voice. They turned to see Vivi running towards them, Sanji and Nami behind her.

"Vivi!" said Luffy, waving to her. "Sorry! Kohza's a nice guy after all!"

Vivi frowned and exchanged a puzzled look with the other two. "Did you talk to him?"

Luffy's expression froze. His eyes slid to the side and he started to whistle, nudging the concrete awkwardly with his toes. "…Nah…" he said after a long, long pause.

"What do you make of that?" whispered Nami.

"He's _obviously_ lying," hissed Sanji. "I'll kick him till he tells the truth!"

"No," said Vivi, grabbing Sanji by the ear. "He…apologized, so isn't that enough?"

"If you say so," said Nami. "But doesn't this whole situation strike you as _odd?_ Doesn't it bother you that he's lying about talking to Kohza?"

"Well, yes," said Vivi. "But this is Luffy. He usually has reasons for what he does."

"No matter how twisted," grumbled Sanji.

"He probably had a reason for not liking Kohza in the first place."

"Are you sure?" said Nami dubiously. "He's not the type to keep quiet, and at the time he claimed there was no reason in particular."

"Yes, but…" Vivi looked back to Luffy. "Luffy, I'd like to put this whole Kohza thing behind us for a little while."

"For a little while?" Luffy repeated.

"Luffy, we have a bigger problem on our hands than these squabbles amongst ourselves," said Nami.

"A woman is being abused!" raged Sanji. "We must rescue her, whatever the cost!"

"Sanji…" said Nami, rubbing her temples, "while I don't deny that that's a large part of the issue, it's hardly the core of it."

"Who cares?" Sanji declared. "She's trying so valiantly to pretend that nothing is wrong while her husband drags her into alleyways and hits her!"

"Wait a second," said Usopp, swallowing hard. "Who exactly are we talking about?"

"'_Whom_ exactly are we talking about' is the correct sentence construct," snapped Nami. "I _knew_ I should have hunted all of you down when no one showed up for tutoring—you're going to drag Luffy and Zoro down with you!"

"Are you implying that you don't care if _I_ fail as long as _they_ pass?"

"_You_ have always studied by yourself. You only join in the tutoring when you feel like it. _They_ are my charges, and I will make absolutely certain that they graduate!"

"What're you going to do when you're in college next year?" grumbled Usopp.

"I'm going here," Nami reminded him. "It's not like I can't keep tutoring them just like this year."

"Oh, really?" Usopp grumbled.

Nami rolled her eyes. "No, I'm just saying it to mess with your head. Of course really! And don't act like I haven't told you that before."

"Back to topic," said Usopp, "_whom_ exactly are we talking about?"

"Why, the beautiful, elegant, lovely Miss Robin of course!" said Sanji.

"See?" said Luffy to Franky and Chopper, pointing at Sanji accusingly. "I _told_ you."

"And I backed you up," Franky grumbled.

"It's amazing," said Chopper to Franky. "Luffy and you were more perceptive than all the rest of us combined."

"That's a really, really scary thought," Sanji shivered.

"Wait," said Nami, holding her hands up. "Am I right to understand that Luffy _guessed_ that Miss Nico was being abused?"

"It's not hard to see, the way she's stiff moving her joints sometimes," Franky spoke up. "If you know what to look for."

"I'm surprised that Luffy knew," said Sanji, glancing at the boy.

"But we can't help with that right now," said Luffy.

"What?" yelped Nami.

"Why?" asked Vivi.

"You selfish shit!" snapped Sanji.

"We have a more important mission," said Luffy. "But I can't tell you about it, because it's a secret mission to protect the mmph!"

Franky's hand clamped over his mouth, and the man sighed.

"You should have ended the sentence at 'secret mission.' That or just tell them."

"But we promised not to!" said Luffy, struggling out of Franky's grip.

"Yeah, but that was when you and that guy's sweetheart were at odds, and if that's solved…" Franky glanced between Luffy and Vivi, then shrugged. "Well, whatever. I suppose you did promise."

"Who's whose sweetheart?" fumed Sanji.

"So this has to do with Kohza," mused Nami.

"Wait," blushed Vivi. "What are you implying?"

"In any case," said Luffy, "we need the bones guy if we want to help Robin."

"_What_ bones guy?" chorused Franky and Nami.

"Don't refer to her so familiarly, she's your _teacher_," snapped Sanji.

"It's useless, Sanji," said Chopper sympathetically. "You should calm down before you rupture an aneurism."

"I don't have any aneurisms to rupture!" roared Sanji.

"What's wrong with you?" huffed Luffy. "Calm down, Sanji."

Nami grabbed Vivi's arm. "Vivi, I think I'm dreaming. Did Luffy just tell _Sanji_ to calm down?"

"I heard that too," said Vivi. "But Luffy, what's Kohza doing? What's this secret mission?"

"It's secret," said Luffy as if that ought to be obvious.

"You might as well just ask Kohza," said Nami. "If you can't get it out of him in the first few minutes, you never will."

"So let's go look for the bones guy!" announced Luffy. "He can help us solve everything, about Robin and Kuro and maybe he can help Zoro and Usopp!"

"Speaking of which, where are those two?" asked Sanji.

"On the secret mission that you can't know about."

"Are you _asking_ for a fight?"

"No," said Luffy with a finger up his nose. "I'm saying we're going looking for the bones guy to save everybody."

"Luffy," said Nami in the tone that meant that she was seconds away from kicking the daylights out of someone, "_what_ bones guy?"

"I don't actually know him, but the old guy said he knows everything there is to know about the passages."

"You're kidding," said Franky. "If that guy really exists, I want to talk to him too."

"Passages," Nami repeated. "Like the ones under Kaya's house?"

"Yeah, they go everywhere around town, to almost every house!" said Chopper. "It's really amazing, but even more confusing."

"Uh…huh," said Nami.

"So come on!" said Luffy. "Let's go look for the bones guy!"

"How is this going to help Miss Robin?" asked Sanji.

"Or the other two cases?" Chopper muttered.

"Because we were trying to follow Robin around, but we kept losing sight of her because she would go places where there weren't any passages or places to hide outside of the passages. But if the bones guy knows ways to keep an eye on those places, then…" Luffy trailed off, his eyes following a moth.

"Then?" urged Nami.

"Look, it's a really colorful moth!" said Luffy.

"Luffy!" snapped Nami, grabbing his cheek. "Focus!"

"What? Oh, bones guy!" said Luffy.

Nami sighed. "And here I was, thinking that he was developing logic skills."

"But it is true," mused Franky. "He's right. If the bones guy really knows everything there is to know about the passages, it could solve most if not all of the mysteries we've been trying to solve."

"Let's go!" said Luffy, and bounded towards the alley behind Blueno's bar.

"I guess we're going," grumbled Sanji as the rest of the group broke into a run after him.

"Wait a second," said Nami, chasing Luffy. "Luffy! I also have a million messages for you! You've been ignoring your baseball team, and they're at a loss for how to practice without their pitcher, and you owe Mr. Morgan eighty-one assignments that I don't know _how_ you managed to accumulate in a week, and Mr. Krieg wants you to know that pictures of water and fish aren't maps, and Mr. Dorry is ready to fry you alive for- Are you even listening to me? Luffy!"

"Doesn't anyone care about Conis?" muttered Chopper.

"She's not around tonight," Franky pointed out. "She's probably got better things to do than go along with Luffy's weird plans."

"But still, she just _disappeared_," said Chopper. "She could be in trouble."

"Doubtful," snorted Franky. "Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be around again tomorrow."

* * *

"_Why_ are you following me around?" demanded Wiper Shandora as soon as Conis Pagaya came running around the corner.

She jumped and stumbled to a stop, staring wide-eyed at the boy she had been following supposedly undetected.

"I…" But she couldn't really think of a good excuse. _You love your sister, and your sister loves you. You're not a bad person._ But Aisa had said that she wanted to keep their friendship secret.

Wiper's eyes narrowed, and he grabbed Conis by the arm and pulled her forward so he was staring her straight in the eyes. "I've said this a million times, and I'll _keep on saying it_ because it's the truth. I didn't do it. I didn't take the files on you and your father. First of all, _my_ family's records are missing, too. Does that seem logical at all to you?"

"No," said Conis, shaking her head emphatically. "No, that's not why I'm here at all!"

Wiper raised a brow disbelievingly.

"I mean, yes, it's because they said you were the one who took the files, but I never believed it!"

"You're following me around because I was accused of stealing your family's personnel files and you don't believe it?"

"I talked to Miss Califa," said Conis. "She said that if I could find proof that it wasn't you-"

"Then what?" scoffed Wiper. "You're claiming that you're trying to prove my innocence?"

"Yes!" said Conis.

"Why? If I'm out of the way, it'll be more convenient for you and that job-stealing dad of-"

With a resounding _smack_ Conis slapped him across the face. Breathing hard, she looked straight at him.

"That was for implying that I would abandon a person in trouble if it suited me. This" -she slapped him again- "is because I've told you time and again that _you couldn't have taken the job_. You were _under age_. My father _will_ step down when you're ready, even if you take another four years to go to college. I _promise_."

Wiper snorted. Conis wondered if she was imagining that it held less derision than before.

"For the record," he said, "following me around and hoping that you'll magically find something to prove me innocent is a little ridiculous."

"I know," said Conis. "But it's the best I can think of just now."

She turned around and stomped away.

"Wait, what are you planning _now_?" Wiper called after her warily.

"I'm going home to sleep so that I can get up in the morning to go to _class_, unlike some people who seem to think that they don't _need_ high school diplomas and do whatever they like all day long to ensure they don't have _any_ alibis to prove them innocent of _anything!_" Conis called back. She glared at him for a moment before turning on her heel and rounding the corner.

Wiper stared after her, blinking. "Weird girl," he muttered to himself as he turned and continued on his way home.

Two streets north and one street west of Wiper, Mayor Slap was just leaving his house.

"I thought I told you to go home," said the mayor.

"We're just out for an evening walk," Zoro deadpanned.

"Kids," sighed the mayor wearily. "Thank you for your concern, but _go home_."

"Nope," said Zoro. He and the mayor glared at each other for a moment.

"Oh, come on," sighed Usopp. "This is juvenile."

"Children shouldn't be out and about at this hour. You should be at home eating dinner or doing homework." The mayor started down the street.

Usopp and Zoro followed him.

They had scarcely turned a corner when a familiar voice rang out. "Hey, Zoro, Usopp!"

"Chopper?" replied Usopp confusedly, looking around to see the source of the voice.

"Shit," Zoro said under his breath, and leapt for the side of the road. It was too late. A flicker of light caught is eye and he felt rather than saw the object shoot past him. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and had it out with a flick of his wrist. He leapt to the wall from which the attack had come and jammed his knife into the slit between bricks. There was a _clang_ of metal on metal. A moment later, Zoro felt the darkness closing in for a mere second before there was nothing else.

Usopp heard the body slump to the ground and spun around. His eyes widened in alarm.

"Mayor Slap!" he called. "Mayor Slap!" He felt blindly for the man's carotid artery. There was no pulse. "Zoro," he said. "How does CPR-"

A bad feeling nudged at the back of his mind, and Usopp looked around. There was no one to be seen but a single figure running in the opposite direction a few streets ahead. Usopp would have known that odd ponytail anywhere—no one else had black hair that long, or tied it in so many places.

He laid the mayor on his back and started pushing on his sternum.

_Where's Zoro?_ Usopp wondered wildly. _Please, please don't die. Why am I suddenly in this alone? And what was Wiper Shandora doing here?_

"Please don't die," he said to the still body in front of him. It didn't matter. The old man's heart was stopped, and would not start again.


End file.
